Page 90 

"A home position opener is illustrated in Diagram #56. From a home position uplift, toss the entire three-box arrangement clockwise. Grab the outside boxes as they come around, box "R" with the left hand, and box "L" with the right hand. Pin box "M" in home position. Note that the right hand catches box "L" palm up, then end-turns counterclockwise to home position."

Diagram 56

 
Page 91 

Some of the gaffed-prop gags in Chapter 7 can be adapted as openers as well. One strategy is to deliberately open with a few bits of fakery, then dazzle the doubting audience with a flawless legitimate routine.

PROGRESSION

Plan your progression through the routine to (I) suit your style and character; and (2) suit your chosen musical accompaniment. Routines performed to musical accompaniment customarily advance to the most rhythmic moves, i.e. the various permutations of the end-turn. As a rule the typical routine moves on to more complex tricks, breaks from the music, and builds to the big finish.
In many ways a verbally accompanied routine permits more freedom. The boxes can be used to illustrate a narrative, for example. (In this type of routine the juggler is not always tied to the task of outdoing himself every 10 seconds!)
In any case, take stock of your inventory of moves. My advice is to be realistic. Keep in mind that a public performance is not a practice session. It is wise not to list a move in your current inventory unless you hit it 95 -1 00070 of the time. Analyze your list, and plot the course for your routine accordingly.
THE BIG FINISH
The finish is the trick that really counts. An inconsequential drop in the beginning of a routine is easily dealt with. But a drop at the finish can negate an otherwise fine show. So your finish trick deserves plenty of attention. Not only does it have to be a crowd-pleaser . . . . but the pressure is on to hit it every time! A routine based on pure skill demands a dazzling finish; a jump- through, pirouettes, around the back, or perhaps a nifty cross- handed combination. A well-conceived comedy or "throw-away" routine could resort to a gaffed prop finish with fine result. Once again there is no "best way" to present cigar boxes or any other routine. . . . so the choice is yours!
 If you can anticipate this kind of audience, and all else is going well, you are in a good position to try an intentional drop. The drop (intentional or otherwise) establishes you as a "mere mortal" after all. This can payoff in audience response at the end of your show.
Your own routine determines the strategic placement of the intentional drop. Many jugglers insert the intentional drop as they lead into the finishing trick, having successfully completed the rest of the routine.
The experienced juggler converts a drop to his advantage whenever possible. The juggler can turn the drop into a laugh, or use the drop to showcase his confidence and utter imperturbability. The rule here is to cover drops with utmost style and aplomb. Often the audience is convinced that every drop is intentional.
 CHAPTER 10:
CONDITIONING
The average so-called "man-on-the-street" sees little relationship between physical conditioning and juggling. The cigar box juggler knows otherwise.
The constant up-and-down motion required in a three-box routine places a workload on both the back and legs. At the same time the arms are jerking back and forth across the body. The hands are constantly clutching at the boxes. Combine all this sustained effort with a jump-through and a few pirouettes, and you have a routine that is a demanding endurance exercise. Hence this brief attention to conditioning.
Physical conditioning is not so necessary for one isolated three-box routine as it is for worthwhile practice sessions. The better your heart and lungs accept the workload, the longer and more efficient your practice sessions will be'...."
 
 

Page 97

IN CONCLUSION

In closing, I hope The Juggler's Manual of Cigar Box Manipulation and Balance contributes to your growth as both a juggler and performer.
The material put forth in this book gives you access to well over 200 individual moves, gags, stunts, and balances---plus hundreds of further combinations. I trust that you will go forward with this knowledge and enjoy the rewards of your own creativity.
 
 
Thus he lay; and thus, in high summer, the year was once more rounding out, the seventh year, though he knew it not, of his sojourn up here.
Then, like a thunder-peal-
But God forbid and modesty withhold us from speaking over- much of what the thunder-peal bore us on its wave of sound! Here rodomontade is out of place. Rather let us lower our voice to say that then came the peal of thunder we all know so well;
THE THUNDERBOLT 709 that deafening explosion of long-gathering magazines of passion and spleen. That historic thunder-peal, of which we speak with bated breath, made the foundations of the earth to shake; but for us it was the shock that fired the mIne beneath the magic mountain, and set our sleeper ungently ()u~ide the gates. DaZed he sits in the long grass and rubs his eyes - a man who, despite many warnings, had neglected to read the papers.
. His Medite~ean friend and m~ntor ~aa ever t~ied to prompt hIm; had felt It Incumbent upon hIm to instruct hIS nurslIng, tfie object of his solicitude, in what was going on down below; but his pupil had lent no ear. The young man had indeed, in a stock- taking way, preoccu
f ied himself with this or that among the subjective shadows 0 things; but the things themselves he had heeded not at all, having a wilful tendency to take the shadow for the substance, and in the substance to see only shadow. For this, however, we must not judge him harshly, since the relation between substance and shadow has never beefi defined once and for all.
Long ago it had been Herr Settembrini who brought sudden illumination into the room; sat down beside the horizontal Hans and sought to influence and instruct him upon matters of life and death. But now it was the {>upil, who, seated with his hands between his knees, at the bedsIde of the humanist, or near his couch in the cosy and retired little mansard study, with the Clzr- blmllro chairs and the water-bottle, kept him company and listened courteously to his utterances upon tne state of Europe - for in these days Herr Ludovico was seldom on his legs. Naphta's vio- lent end, the terroristic deed of that desperate antagonist, had dealt his sensitive nature a blow from which it could scarcely rally; weakness and infirmity had since been his portion. He could no longer work on the Sociological Pathology; the League waited in vain for that lexicon of all the masterpieces of letters having human suffering for their central theme. Herr Ludovico had per- force to limit to oral efforts his contribution to the organization of progress; and even so much he must have foregone had not Hans Castorp's visits given him opportunity to s{'read his gospel.
His voice was weak, but he spoke with convIction, at length and beautifully, upon the self-perfecting of the human spirit through social betterment. Softly, ;is though on the wings of doves, came the words of Herr Ludovico. Yet again, when he came to speak of the unification and universal well-being of the liberated peoples, there mingled a sound - he neither knew nor
willed it, of course - as of the rushing pinions of eagles. That
710 THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
was the political key, the grandfatherly inheritance that united in him with the humanistic gift of the father, to make up the litterateur - precisely as humanism and politics united in the lofty ideal of civilization, an ideal wherein were blended the mildness of doves and the boldness of eagles. That ideal was only biding its time, until the day dawned, the Day of the People, when the principle of reaction should be laid low, and the Holy Alliance of civIC democracies take its place. Yes, here seemed to sound two voices, with differing counsels. For Herr Settembrini was a hu- manitarian, yet at the same time, half explicitly, he was warlike too. In the duel with the outrageous little Naphta he had borne himself like a man. But in general it still remained rather vague what his position was to be, when humanity in an outburst of enthusiasm united itself with politics in support of a triumphant and dominating world-civilization, and the burgher's pike was dedicated upon the altar of humanity. There was some doubt whether he would then hold back his hand from the shedding of blood. Yes, it seemed the prevailing temper more and more held sway in the Italian's mind and view; the boldness of the eagle ,vas gradually outbidding the mildness of the dove.
Not infreque.n~y his attitude towar~ the existing great political systems was divIded, embarrassed, dIstUrbed by scrup[es. The diplomatic rapprochement between his country and Austria, their co-operation in Albania, had reflected itself in his conversation: a co-operation that raised his spirits in that it was directed agajost Latinless half-Asia - knout, Schliisselburg, and all- yet tormented them in that it was a misbegotten alliance with the hereditary foe, with the principle of reaction and subjugated nationalities. The autumn previous, the great French loan to Russia, for the purpose of building a network of railways in Poland. had awakened in him similar misgivings. For Herr Settembrini belonged to the Fran- cophile party in his own country. which was not surprising when one recalled that his grandfather had compared the six days of the July Revolution to the six days of the creation, and seen that they were as good. But the understanding between the en- lightened republic and Byzantine Scythia was too much for him, it oppressed his breast, and at the same time made him breathe quicker for hope and joy at the thought of the strategic meaning of that network of rJilways. Then came the Serajevo murder, for everyone excepting German Seven-Sleepers a storm-signal; de- cisive for the informed ones, among whom we may reckon Herr Settembrini. Hans Castorp saw him shudder as a private citizen at the frightful deed, while in the same moment his breast heaved
THE THUNDERBOLT 711
with the knowledge that this was a deed of popular liberation, direCted against the citadel of his loathing. On the other hand, was it not also the fruit of Muscovite activity, and as such giving rise to great heart-searchings? Which did not hinder him, three weeks later, from characterizing the extreme demands of the monarchy upon Servia as a hideous crime and an insult to human dignity, the consequences of \vhich he could foresee well enough, and awaited in breathless excitement.
In short, Herr Settembrini's feelings \vere as complex as the fatality he saw fast rolling up, for which he sought by hints and half-words to prepare his pupil, a sort of national courtesy and compunction preventing him from speaking out. In the first days of mobilization, the first declaration of war, he had a way of putting out both hailds to his visitor, taking Hans Castorp's own and pressin~ them, that fairly went to our young noodle's heart, if not precISely to his head. " My friend," the Italian would say," gunpowder, the printing-press, yes, you have certainly given us all that. But if vou think we could march against the Revolu-
.
CI ,~
tlon - aro. . . .
During those days of stifling expectation, when the nerves of Europe were on the rack, Hans Castorp did not see Herr Settem- brini. The newspapers with their wild, chaotic contents pressed up out of the depths to his very balcony, they disorganized the house, filled the dining-room with their sulphurous, stifling breath, even penetrated the chambers of the dying. These were the mo- ments when the "Seven-Sleeper," not knowing what had hap- pened, was slowly stirring himself in the grass, before he sat up,
rubbed his eyes - yes, let us carry the figure to the end, in order
to do justice to the movement of our hero's mind: he drew up his legs, stood up, looked about him. He saw himself released, freed from enchantment - not of his own motion, he was fain to confess, but by the operation of exterior powers, of whose activities his own liberation was a minor incident indeed! Yet though his tiny destiny fainted to nothing in the fac~ of the gen- eral, was there not some hint of a personal mercy and grace for him, a manifestation of divine goodness and justice? Would Life receive again her erring and "delicate ., child - not by a cheap and easy slipping back to her arms, but sternly, solemnly, peni- tentially - perhaps not even among the living, but only with three salvoes fired over the grave of him a sinner? Thus might he return. He sank on his knees, raising face and hands to a heaven that howsoever dark and sulphurous was no longer the gloomy grotto of his State of sin.
7 I Z THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
And in this attitude Herr Settembrini found him - figura- tively and most figuratively spoken, for full well we know our hero's traditional reserve would render such theatricality im- possible. Herr Settembrini, in fact, found him packing his trunk. For since the moment of his sudden awakening, Hans Castorp
had been caught up in the hurry and scurry of a cc wild" de-
parture, brought about by the thunder-peal. .c Home " - the Berghof - was the picture of an ant-hill in a panic: its little popu- lation was flinging itself, heels over head, five thousand feet down- wards to the catastrophe-smitten flat-land. They stormed the little trains, they crowded them to the footboard -luggageless, if nee~ must, and the stacks of luggage piled high the station platform, the seething platform, to the height of which the scorching breath from the flat-land seemed to mount - and Hans Castorp stormed with them. In the heart of the tumult Ludovico embraced him, quite literally enfolded him in his arms and kissed him, like a southerner - but like a Russian too - on both his cheeks; and this, despite his own emotion, took our wild traveller no little aback. But he nearly lost his composure when, at the very last, Herr Settembrini called him .. GIovanni" and, laying aside the form of address common to the cultured West,. spoke to him with the thou!
cc E cosl in girl," he said. cc Coil vat' in girl finalmente - ad-
dio, Giova1mi mio! Quite otherwise had I thought to see thee go. But be it so, the gods have willed it thus and not otherwise. I hoped to discharge you to go down to your work, and now you go to fight among your kindred. My God, it was given to you and not to your cousin, our Tenente! What tricks life plays! Go, then, it is your blood that calls, go and fight bravely. More than that can no man. But forgive me if I devote the remnant of my powers to incite my country to fight where the Spirit and sacro egoismo point the way. Addio! "
Hans Castorp thrust out his head among ten others, filling the little open window-frame. He waved. And Herr Settembrini waved back, with his right hand, while with the ring-finger of his left he delicately touched the corner of his eye.
What is it? Where are we? Whither has the dream snatched us? Twilight, rain, filth. Fiery glow of the overcast sky, ceaseless booming of heavy thunder; the moist air rent by a sharp singing whine, a raging, swelling howl as of some hound of hell, that ends its course in a splitting, a splintering and sprinkling, a crackling, a coruscation; by groans and shrieks, by trUmpets blowing fit to
THE THUNDERBOLT 713
burst, by the beat of a drum coming faster, faster - There is a wood, discharging drab hordes, that cnme on, fall, spring up again, come on. - Beyond, a line of hill stands out against the fiery sky, whose glow turns now and again to blowing flames. About us is rolling plough-land, all upheaved and trodden into mud; athwart it a bemired high road, disguised with broken branches and from it again a deeply furro\ved, boggy field-path leading off in curves toward the distant hills. Nuc!e, branchless trunks of trees meet the eye, a cold rain falls. Ah, a signpost! Useless, though, to question it, even despite the half-dark, for it is shattered, illegible. East, west? It is the flat-land, it is the war. And we are shrinking shadows by the way-side, shamed by the security of our shadowdom, and noways minded to indulge in any rodomontade; merely led hither by the spirit of our nar- rative, merely to see again, among those running, stumbling, drum~ mustered grey comrades that swarm out of yonder wood, one we know; merely to look once more in the simple face of our one-time fellovo; of so many years, the genial sinner whose voice we know so well, before we lose him from our sight.
They have been brought forward, these comrades, for a final thrust in a fight that has already lasted all day long, whose ob- jective is the retaking of the hill position and the burning villages beyond, lost two days since to the enemy. It is a volunteer regi- ment, fresh young blood and mostly students, not long in the field. They were roused in the night, brought up in trains to morning, then marched in the rain on \vretched roads-on no roads at all, for the roads were blocked, and they went over moor and ploughed land with full ~it for seven hours, their coats sodden. It was no pleasure excursion. If one did not care to lose one's boots, one stooped at every second step, clutched with one's fingers into the straps and pulled them out of the quaking mire. It took an hour of such work to cover one meadow. But at last they have reached the appointed spot, exhausted, on edge, yet the reserve strength of their youthful bodies has kept them tense, they crave neither the sleep nor the food they have been denied. Their wet, mud-bespattered faces, framed between strap and grey-covered helmet, are flushed with exertion - perhaps too with the sight of the 105.'ies they suffered on their march through that boggy wood. For the enemy, aware of their advance, have concentrated a barrage of shrapnel and large-calibre grenades upon the way they must come; it crashed among them in the wood, ~nd howling, flaming, splashing, lashed the wide ploughed land.
They must get through, these three thousand ardent youths;
714 THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
they must reinforce with their bayonets the attack on the burn- ing villages, and the trenches in front of and behind the line of hills; they must help to advance their line to a point indicated in the dispatch their leader has in his pocker. They are three thou- sand, that they may be tWo thousand when the hills, the villages are reached; that IS the meaning of their number. They are a body of troops calculated as sufficient, even after great losses, to attack and carry a position and greet their triumph witll a thou- sand-voiced huzza - not counting the stragglers that fall Ollt by the way. Many a one has thus fallen out on the forced march, for which he proved too young and weak; paler he grew, stag- gered, Set his ~erh, drove himself on - and after all he could do fell out notWithStanding. Awhile he dragged hi!nself in the rear of the marching column, overtaken and passed by company after company; at length he remained on the ground, lying where it was not good to lie. Then came the shattering wood. But there are so many of them, swanning on - they can survive a blood- letting and Still come on in hosts. They have already overflowed the level, rain-lashed land; the high road, the field road, the boggy ploughed land; we shadows stand amid and among them. At the edge of the wood they fix their bayonets, with the practised grips; the horns enforce them, the drums roJI deepest b~ and
forward they stumble, as best they can. with shrill cries; night- .c
marishly, for clods of earth cling to their heavy boots and fetter 1 them. c~
They fling themselves down before the projectiles that come ::1
howling on. then they leap up again and hurry forward; they exult. in their young, breaking voices as they run. to discover themselves still unhit. Or they are hit. they fall. fighting the air with their arms, shot through the forehead, the hean. the belly.. They lie, their faces in the mire, and are motionless. They lie, their backs elevated by the knapsack, the crowns of their heads pressed into the mud, and clutch and claw in the air. But the wood emits new SWanns, who fling themselves down, who spring up, who-
I "
shrieking or silent, blunder forward over the fallen. ~
Ah, this young blood, with its knapsacks and bayonets, its ;
mud-befouled boots and clothing! We look at it, our humanistic- -
resthetic eye pictures it among scenes far other than these: we see these youths watering horses on a sunny arm of the sea; roving with the beloved one along the strand, the lover's lips to the ear of the yielding bride; in happiest rivalry bending the bow.
Alas, no, here they lie, their noses in fierr filth. They are glad!
to be here - albeit with boundle§ angwsh. with unspeakable J
-
THE THUNDERBOLT 715
sickness for home; and this, of itself, is a noble and a shaming thing - but no good reason for bringing them to such a pass.
There is our friend, there is Hans Castorp! We recognize I.im at a distance, by the little beard he assumed while sitting at the cc bad " Russian table. Like all the others, he is wet through and glowing. He is running, his feet heavy with mould, dte bayonet swinging. in his hand. Look! He treads on the hand of a fallen comrade; with his hobnailed boot he treads the hand deep into the slimy, branch-strewn ground. But it is he. What, singing? As one sings, unaware, staring stark ahead, yes, dtus he spends his hurrying breath, to sing half soundlessly:
cc And loving words I've carven
Upon its branches fair - "
He stumbles, No, he has flung himself down, a hell-hound is c~ming howling, a huge explosive shell, a disgusting sugar-loaf from the infernal regions. He lies with his face in the cool mire, legs sprawled out, feet twisted, heels turned down. The product of a perverted science, laden with death, slopes earthward thiny paces in front of him and buries its nose in the ground; explodes inside there, with hideous expense of power, and raises up a fountain high as a house, of mud, fire, iron, molten metal, scattered fragments of humanity. Where it fell, two youths had lain, friends who in their need flung themselves down together - now they are scattered, commingled and gone.
Shame of our shadow-safety! Away! No more! -But our friend? Was he hit? He thought so, for the moment. A great clod of earth struck him on the shin, it hurt, but he smiles at it. Up he gets, and staggers on, limping on his earth-bound feet, all un- consciously singing:
cc Its waving branches whi - ispered
A mess-age in my ear-"
and thus, in the tumult, in the rain, in the dusk, vanishes out ot our sight.
Farewell, honest Hans Castorp, farewell, Life's delicate child! Your tale is told. We have told it to the end, and it was neither short nor long, but hermetic. We have told it for its own sake, not for yours, for you were simple. But after all, it was your story, it befell you, you must have more in you than we thought; we will not disclaim the pedagogic weakness we conceived fn..
716 THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
you in the telling; which could even lead us to press a finger deli- cately to our eyes at the thought that we shall see you no more, hear you no more for ever.
Farewell - and if thou livest or diest! Thy prospects are poor. The desperate dance, in which thy fortunes are caught up, will last yet many a sinful year; we should not care to set a high stake on thy life by the time it ends. We even confess that it is without great concern we leave the question open. Adventures of the flesh and in the spirit, while enhancing thy simplicity, granted thee to know in the spirit what in the flesh thou scarcely couldst have done. Moments there were, when out of death, and the rebellion of the flesh, there came to thee, as thou tookest stock of thyself, a dream of love. Out of this universal feast of death, out of this extremity of fever, kindling the rain-washed evening sky to a fiery glow, may it be that Love one day shall mOUQt?
J'DfD0H8II