Page
23
Secrets
of the 'other you'
Tom
lethbridge's own explanation of this strange 'power of the
pendulum' Is that there is a part of the human mind - the
uncons-cious, perhaps - that knows the answers to all
questions. Unfortunately it cannot convey these answers to
the 'everyday you', the busy, conscious self that spends its
time coping with practical problems. But this 'other you'
can convey its message via the dowsing rod or
pendulum by the simple expedient of controlling the
muscles.
Lethbridge
had started as a cheerfully sceptical investigator trying to
understand nature's hidden codes for conveying information .
His researches led him into strange, bewildering realms
where all his normal ideas seemed to be turned upside down.
He compared himself to a man walking on ice, when it
suddenly collapses and he finds himself floundering in
freezing water. Of this sudden immersion in new ideas he
said: 'From living a normal in a three- dimensional world, I
seem to have suddenly fallen through into one where there
are more dimensions. The three dimensional life goes on as
usual; but one has to adjust one's thinking to the other.'
"
Page
25
"...Lethbridge
had always been interested in dreams, ever since he read J.
W. Dunne's An experiment with time in the 1930's"
"...Lethbridge speculated that during sleep, a part of us
passes through this world to a still higher world still.
Coming back from sleep we pass through it once again to
enter our own much slower world of
vibrations."
Page
27
"...The
more he studied these puzzles, the more convinced Lethbridge
became that the key to all of them is the concept of
vibrations. Our bodies seem to be machines tuned to
pick up certain vibrations. Our eyes will only register
energy whose wavelength is between that of red and violet
light. Shorter or longer wavelengths are invisible to us.
Modern Physics tells us that at the sub- atomic level matter
is in a state of constant
vibration.
Diagram
and photographs omitted
"...the
spectrum of electromagnetic (EM) vibrations. EM waves
consist of electric and magnetic fields vibrating with a
definite frequency, each corresponding to a particular
wavelength in order of increasing frequency and decreasing
wavelength, the EM spectrum consists of : very long wave
radio, used for communication with submarines; long, medium
and short wave radio (used for AM broadcasting); FMradio,
television and radar; infra-red (heat) radiation, which is
recorded in the Earth photographs taken by survey
satellites; visible light; ultraviolet light, which, while
invisible, stimulates fluorescence in some materials; X-
rays; and high energy gamma rays, which occur in fall out
and in cosmic rays. The progressive discovery of these waves
has inspired speculations concerning unknown 'vibrations'
making up our own and higher worlds"
Worlds
beyond worlds
According
to Lethbridge's pendulum, the 'world' beyond our world - the
world that can be detected by a pendulum of more than 40
inches - consists of vibrations that are four times as fast
as ours. It is all around us yet we are able to see it,
because it is beyond the range of our senses. All the
objects in our world extend into this other world. Our
personalities also extend into it, but we are not aware of
this, because our 'everyday self' has no communication with
that 'other self'. But the other self can answer questions
by means of the pendulum."
"...Lethbridge's
insistence on rediscovering the ancient art of dowsing also
underlined his emphasis on understanding the differences
between primitive and modern Man. The ancient peoples- going
back to our caveman ancestors - believed that the Universe
is magical and that Earth is a living creature. They were
probably natural dowsers - as the aborigines of australia
still are - and res-ponded naturally to the forces of the
earth. Their standing stones were, according to Lethbridge,
intended to mark places where the earth force was most
powerful and perhaps to harness it in some way now
forgotten.
Modern Man has suppressed - or lost that instinctive,
intuitive contact with the forces of the Universe. He is two
busy keeping together his precious civilisation Yet he still
potentially possesses that ancient power of dowsing, and
could really develop it if he really wanted to. Lethbridge
set out to develop his own powers, and to explore them
scientifically, and soon came to the conclu-sion that the
dowsing rod and the pendulum are incredibly accurate. By
making use of some unknown part of the mind - the
un-conscious or 'superconscious' - they can provide
information that is inaccessible to our ordinary senses, and
can tell us about realms of reality beyond the 'everyday'
world of physical matter.
Lethbridge
was not a spiritualist. He never paid much attention to the
question of life after death or the existence of a 'spirit
world'. But by pursuing his researches into these subjects
with a tough - minded logic, he concluded that there are
other realms of reality beyond our world, and that there are
forms of energy we do not even begin to understand. Magic,
spiritualism and occult-ism are merely our crude attempts to
under-stand this vast realm of hidden energies, just as
alchemy was Man's earliest attempt to understand the
mysteries of atomic physics.
As
to the meaning of all this, Lethbridge preserves the caution
of an academic. Yet in his last years he became increasingly
con-vinced that there is a meaning in human existence. and
that it is tied up with the concept of our personal
evolution. For some reason we are being driven to
evolve.
With
a bow, instead of a wob those twa brothers, and one sister
being caught fast, rainbowed out and in order not to
lose that golden thread of threads. Alizzed here
re-introduced that beloved Mann, Castorp.
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
Thomas Mann 1924
Humaniora
Page 251 /
" HANS CASTORP and Joachim Ziernssen, arrayed in white trouse and blue blazers, were sitting in the garden after
dinner. It was another of those much-lauded October days: bright without be-ing heavy, hot and yet with a tang in the air. The sky
above the vally was a deep southern blue and the pastures beneath, widt the cattle tracks running across and across them, still a
lively green. From the rugged slopes came the sound of cowbells; the peacefu, simple, melodious tintinnabulation came floating
unbroken through the quiet, thin, empty air, enhancing the mood of solemnity that broods over the valley heights.
The
cousins were sitting on a bench at the end of the garden, in
front of a semi-circle of young firs. The small open space
lay at the north-west of the hedged-in platform, which rose
some fifty yards above the valley, and formed the
foundations of the Berghof building. They were silent. Hans
Castorp was smoking. He was also wrangling inwardly with
Joachim, \\lho had not wanted to join the society on the
verandah after luncheon, and had drawn his cousin against
his will into the stillness and seclusion of the garden,
until such time as they should go up to their balconies.
That was behaving like a tyrant - when it came to that, they
were not Siamese twins, it was possible for them to
separate, if their inclinations took them in opposite
directions. Hans Castorp was not up here to be company for
Joachim, he was a patient hiinself.
/
Page 252 /
Thus
he grumbled on, and could endure to grumble, for had he not
Maria? He sat, his hands in his blazer pockets, his feet in
brown shoes stretched out before him, and held the long,
greyish cigar between his lips, precisely in the centre of
his mouth, and droop- ing a little. It was in the first
stages of consumption, he had not yet knocked off the ash
from its blunt tip; its aroma was pec-uliarly grateful after
the heavy meal just enjoyed. It might be true that in other
respects getting used to life up here had mainly consisted
in getting used to not getting used to it. But for the
chemistry of his digestion, the nerves of his mucous
membrane, which had been parched and tender, inclined to
bleeding, it seemed that the process of adjustment had
completed itself. For imperceptibly, in the course of these
nine or ten weeks, his organic satisfaction in that
excellent brand of vegetable stimulant or narcotic had been
entirely restored. He rejoIced in a faculty regained, his
mental satisfaction heightened the physical. During his time
in bed he had saved on the supply of two hundred cigars
which he had brought with him, and some of these were still
left; but at the same time with his winter clothing from
below, there had arrived another five hundred of the Bremen
make, which he had ordered through Schalleen to make quite
sure of not running out. They came in beautiful little
varnished boxes, ornamented in gilt with a globe, several
medals, and an exhibition building with a flag floating
above it.
As
they sat, behold, there came Hofrat Behrens through the
garden. He had taken his midday meal in the dining-hall
to-day, folding his gigantic hands before his place at Frau
Salomon's table. After that he had probably been on the
terrace, making the suitable personal remark to each and
everybody, very likely displaying his trick with the
bootlaces for such of the guests as had not seen it. Now he
came lounging through the garden, wear- ing a check
tail-coat, instead of his smock, and his stiff hat on the
back of his head. He too had a cigar in his mouth, a very
black one, from which he was puffing great white clouds of
smoke. His head and face, with the over-heated purple
cheeks, the snub nose, watery blue eyes, and little clipped
moustache, looked small in proportjon to the lank, rather
warped and stooping figure, and the enormous hands and feet.
He was nervous; visibly started when he saw the cousins, and
seemed embarrassd over the neces-sity of passing them. But
he greeted them in his usual picturesque and expansive
fashion, with "Behold, behold, Timotheus! " go- ing on to
invoke the usual blessings on their metabolisms,
while
/
Page 253 /
he
prevented their rising from their seats, as they would have
done in his honour.
"Sit
down, sit down. No formalities with a simple man like me.
Out of place too, you being my patients, both of you. Not
necessary. No objection to the status quo," and he remained
stand- ing before them, holding the cigar between the index
and middle fingers of his great right
hand.
"
How's your cabbage-leaf, Castorp? Let me see, I'm a
connois-seur. That's a good ash - what sort of brown beauty
have you there? "
"Maria
Mancini, Postre de Banquett, Bremen, Herr Hofrat.
Costs little or nothing, nineteen pfennigs in plain colours
- but a bouquet you don't often come across at the price.
Sumatra-Havana wrapper, as you see. I am very wedded to
them. It is a medium mixture, very fragrant, but cool on the
tongue. Suits it to leave the ash long, I don't knock it off
more than a couple of times. She has her whims, of course,
has Maria; but the inspection must be very thorough, for she
doesn't vary much, and draws perfectly even May I offer you
one? "
"
Thanks, we can exchange." And they drew out their
cases.
"There's
a thorough-bred for you," the Hofrat said, as he displayed
his brand. " Temperament, you know, juicy, got some guts to
it. St. Felix, Brazil- I've always stuck to this sort.
Regu-lar 'begone, dull care,' burns like brandy, has
something ful- minating toward the. end. But you need to
exercise a little cau- tion - can't light one from the
other, you know - more th:tn a fellow can stand. However,
better one good mouthful than any amount of
nibbles."
They
twirled their respective offerings between their fingers,
felt connoisseur-like thc slender shapes that possessed, or
so one might think, some organic quality of life, with their
ribs fonned by the diagonal parallel edges of the raised,
here and tbere porous wrapper, the exposed veins that seemed
to pulsate, the small in- equalities of the skin, the play
of light on planes and edges.
Hans
Castorp expressed it: "A cigar like that is alive- it
breathes. Fact. Once, at home, I had the idea of keeping
Maria in an air-tight tin box, to protect her from damp.
Would you believe it, she died! Inside of a week she
perished - nothing but leathery corpses
left."
They
exchangcd experiences upon the best way to keep cigars -
particularly imported ones. The Hofrat loved them,. he would
have smoked nothing but heavy Havanas, but they did not suit
/
Page 254 /
him.
He told Hans Castorp about two little Henry Clays he had
once taken to his heart, in an evening company, which had
come within an ace of putting him under the
sod.
..
I smoked them with my coffee, " he said, and thought no more
of it. But after a while it struck me to wonder how I felt -
and I discovered it was like nothing on earth. I don't know
how I got home - and once there, well, this time, my son, I
said to myself, you're a goner. Feet and legs like ice, you
know, reeking with cold sweat, white as a table-cloth, heart
going all ways for Sunday - sometimes just a thread of a
pulse, sometimes pounding like a trip- hammer. Cerebration
phenomenal. I made sure I was going to toddle off - that is
the very expression that occurred to me, be-cause at the
time I was feeling as jolly as a sand-boy. Not that I wasn't
in a funk as well, because I was - I was just one large blue
funk all over. Still, funk and felicity aren't mutually
exclusive, everybody knows that. Take a chap who's going to
have a girl for the first. time in his life; he is in a funk
too, and so is she, and yet both of them are simply
dissolving with felicity. I. was nearly dis-solving too - my
bosom swelled with pride, and there I was, on the point of
toddling off; but the Mylendonk got hold of me and - suaded
me it was a poor idea. She gave me a camphor injection,
applied ice-compresses and friction - and here I am, saved
for hu- manity ."
The Hofrat's large, goggling blue eyes watered as he told this story. Hans Castorp, seated in his capacity of patient, looked up at
him with an expression that betrayed mental activity.
" You paint sometimes, don't you, Herr Hofrat? " he asked suddenly.
The Hofrat pretended to stagger backwards " W hat the deuce! What do you take me for, youngster? "
" I beg your pardon. I happened to hear somebody say so, and it just crossed my mind."
"Well,
then, 1 won't trouble to lie about it. We're all poor crea-
tures. I admit such a thing has happened. Anch' io sono
pittore, as the Spaniard used to
say.'
"
Landscape? " Hans Castorp asked him succinctly, with the air
of a connoisseur, circumstances betraying him to this
tone.
" As much as you like," the Hofrat answered, swaggering out of sheer self-consciousness. " Landscape, still life, animals - chap
like me shrinks from nothing."
" No portraits? "
"I've
even thrown in a portrait or so. Want to give me an order?"
/
Page 255 /
Ha
ha! No, but it would be very kind of you to show us your
pictures some time - we should enjoy it." Joachim looked
blankly at his cousin, but then hastened to add his
assurances that it would be very kind indeed of the
Hofrat.
Behrens
was enchanted at the flattery. He grew red with pleas- ure,
his tears seemed this time actually on the point of
falling.
"With
the greatest pleasure," he cried. On the spot if you like.
Come on, come along with me, I'll brew us a Turkish coffee
in my den."
He
pulled both young men from the bench and walked be-tween
them arm in arm, down the gravel path which led, as they
knew, to his private quarters in the north-west wing of the
build- mg.
"
I've dabbled a little in that sort of thing myself," Hans
Castorp explained.
"You
don't say! Gone in for it properly - oils?
"
"
Oh, no, I never went further than a water-colour or so. A
ship, a sea-piece, childish efforts. But I'm fond of
painting, and so I took the liberty -
"
Joachim
in particular felt relieved and enlightened by this ex-
planation of his cousin's startling curiosity; it was in
fact more on his account than on the Hofrat's that Hans
Castorp had offered it. They reached the entrance, a much
simpler one than the impres-sive portal on the drive, with
its flanking lanterns. A pair of curv-ing steps led up to
the oaken house door, which the Hofrat opened with a
latch-key from his heavy bunch. His hand trembled, he was
plainly in a nervous state. They entered an antechamber with
clothes-racks, where Behrens hung his bowler on a hook, and
thence passed into a short corridor, which was separated by
a glass door from that of the main building. On both sides
of this corridor lay the rooms of the small private
dwelling. Behrens called a servant and gave an order; then
to a running accompaniment of whimsical remarks ushered them
through a door on the right.
They
saw a couple of rooms furnished in banal middle-class taste,
facing the valley and opening one into another through a
doorway hung with portieres. One was an "old-German"
din-ing-room, the other a living- and working-room, with
woollen carpets, bookshelves and sofa, and a writing-table
above which hung a pair of crossed swords and a student's
cap. Beyond was a Turkish smoking-cabinet. Everywhere were
paintings, the work of the Hofrat. The guests went up to
them at once on entering, courteously ready to praise. There
were several portraits of his de-parted wife, in oil; also,
standing on the writing-table, photo-
/
Page 256 /
graphs
of her. She was a thin, enigmatic blonde, portrayed in
flow-ing garments, with her hands, their finger-tips just
lightly enlaced, against her left shoulder, and her eyes
either directed toward heaven or else cast upon the ground,
shaded by long, thick, ob-liquely outstanding eyelashes.
Never once was the departed one shown looking directly ahead
of her toward the observer. The other pictures were chiefly
mountain landscapes, mountains in snow and mountains in
summer green, mist-wreathed mountains, mountains whose dry,
sharp outline was cut out against a deep-blue sky - these
apparently under the influence of Segantini. Then there were
cowherds' huts, and dewlapped cattle standing or lying in
sun-drenched high pastures. There was a plucked fowl, with
its long writhen neck hanging down from a table among a
setting of vegetables. There were flower-pieces, types of
mountain peasantry, and so on - all painted with a certain
brisk dilettantism, the colours boldly dashed on to the
canvas, and often looking as though they had been squeezed
on out of the tube. They must have taken a long time to dry
- but were sometimes effective by way of helping out the
other shortcomings.
They
passed as they would along the walls of an exhibition,
ac-companied by the master of the house, who now and then
gave a name to some subject or other, but was chiefly
silent, with the proud embarrassment of the artist, tasting
the enjoyment of look- ing on his own works with the eyes of
strangers. The portrait of Clavdia Chauchat hung on the
window wall of the living-room - Hans Castorp spied it out
with a quick glance as he entered, though the likeness was
but a distant one. Purposely he avoided the spot, detaining
his companions in the dining-room, where he affected to
admire a fresh green glimpse into the valley of the Serbi,
with ice- blue glaciers in the background. Next he passed of
his own accord into the Turkish cabinet, and looked at an it
had to show, with praises on his lips thence back to the
living-room, beginning with the entrance wall, and calling
upon Joachim to second his en- comiums. But at last he
turned, with a measured start, and said: "But surely that is
a familiar face? "
"You recognize her? "the Hofrat wanted to know.
" It is not possible I am mistaken. The lady at the' good' Rus-sian table, with the French name - "
Right! Chauchat. Glad you think it's like her."
Speaking,"
Hans Castorp lied. He did so less from insincerity than in
the consciousness that, on the face of things, he ought not
to have been able to recognize her. Joachim could never have
done so - good Joachim, who saw the whole affair now in its
true light,
/
Page 257 /
after
the false one Hans Castorp had first cast upon it; wool had
been pulled over his eyes; and with a murmured recog-nition
applied himself to help look at the painting. His cousin had
paid him out for not going into society after luncheon. It
was a bust-length, in half profile, rather under life size
in a wide, bevelled frame, black, with an inner beading of
guilt. Neck and bosom were bare or veiled with a soft
drapery laid about the shoulders. Frau Chauchat appeared ten
years older than her age, as often happens in amateur
portraiture where the artist is bent on making a character
study. There was too much red all over the face, the nose
was badly out of drawing, the colour of the hair badly hit
off, too straw-colour; the mouth was distorted, the
pecu-liar charm of the features ungrasped or at least not,
spoiled by the exaggeration of their single elements. The
whole was a rather botched performance, and only distantly
related to its original. But Hans Castorp was not particular
about the degree of like-ness, the relation of this canvas
to Frau Chauchat's person was close enough for him. It
purported to represent her, in these very rooms she had sat
for it, that was all he needed; much moved he
reiterated:
"
The very image of her! "
"Oh,
no," the Hofrat demurred. "It was a pretty clumsy piece of
work, I don't flatter myself I hit her off very well we had,
I suppose, twenty sittings. What can you do with a rum sort
of face like that? You might think she would be easy to
capture, with those hyperborean cheek-bones, and eyes like
cracks in a loaf of bread. Yes, there's something about her-
if you get the detail right, you botch the ensemble. Riddle
of the sphinx. Do you know her? It would probably be better
to paint her from memory instead of having her sit. Did you
say you knew her? "
"
No; that is, only superficially, the way one knows people up
here."
"Well,
I know her under her skin - subcutaneously, blood pressure,
tissue tension, lymphatic circulation, al that sort of
thing. I've good reason to. It's the superficies make the
difficulty. Have you ever noticed her walk? She slinks. It's
character - istic, show's in her face - take the eyes, for
example, not to mention the complexion, though that is
tricky too. I don't mean their colour, I am speaking of the
cut, and the way they s it in the faceYou'd say the eye slit
was cut obliquely, but it only looks so. What deceives you
is the epicanthus, a racial variation, consisting in a sort
of ridge of integument that runs from the bridge of the nose
to the eyelid, and comes down over the inside corner of the
eye. If you take your finger and stretch the skin at the
base of the nose, the
/
Page 258 /
eye
looks as straight as any of ours. Quite a taking little
dodge - but as a matter of fact, the epicanthus can be
traced back to an atavistic vestige - it's a. developmental
arrest."
"
So that's it. " Hans Castorp said. "I never knew that - but
I've wondered for a long time what it is about eyes like
that."
"
Vanity," said the Hofrat, and vexation of spirit. If you
simply draw them in slanting, you are lost. You must bring
about the obliquity the same way nature does, you must add
illusion to illusion - and for that you have to know about
the epicanthus. What a man knows always comes in handy. Now
look at the skin - the epidennis. Do you find I've managed
to make it lifelike, or not? "
"
Enormously," said Hans Castorp, "Simply enormously. I've
never seen skin painted anything like so well. You can
fairly see the pores..' And he ran the edge of his hand
lightlyy over the bare neck and shoulders, the skin of
which, especially by contrast with the exaggerated red of
the face, was very white, as though seldom exposed. Whether
this effect was premeditated or not, it was rather
suggestive.
And
still Hans Castorp's praise was deserved. The pale shim-mer
of this tender, though not emaciated, bosom, losing itself
in the bluish shadows of the drapery, was very like life. It
was obvi-ously painted with feeling; a sort of sweemess
emanated .from it, yet the artist had been successful in
giving it a scientific realism and precision as well. The
roughness of the canvas texture, show-ing through the paint,
had been dexterously employed to suggest the natural
unevennesses of the skin - this especially in the neigh-
bourhood of the delicate collar-bones. A tiny mole, at the
point where the breasts began to divide, had been done with
care, and on their rounding surfaces one thought to trace
the delicate blue veins. It was as though a scarcely
perceptible shiver of sensibility beneath the eye of the
beholder were passing over this nude flesh, as though one
might see the perspiration, the invisible vapour which the
life beneath threw off; as though, were one to press one's
lips upon this surface, one might perceive, not the smell of
paint and fixative, but the odour of the human body. Such,
at least, were Hans Castorp's impressions, which we here
reproduce - and he, of course, was in a peculiarly
susceptible state. But it is none the less true that Frau
Chauchat's portrait was by far the most telling piece of
painting in the room.
Hofrat
Behrens rocked back and forth on his heels and the balls of
his feet, his hands in this trouser pockets, as he gazed at
his work in company with the
cousins.
/
Page 259 /
"
Delighted," he said. "Delighted to find favour in the eyes
of a colleague. If a man knows a bit about what goes on
under the epidermis, that does no harm either. In other
words, if he can paint a little below the surface, and
stands in another relation to nature than just the lyrical,
so to say. An artist who is a doctor, physi-ologist, and
anatomist on the side. and has his own little way of
thinking about the under sides of things - it all comes in
handy too, it gives you the pas, say what you like.
That birthday suit there is painted with science. it is
organically correct, you can ex-amine it under the
microscope. You can see not only the horny and mucous strata
of the epidermis, but I've suggested the texture of the
corium underneath, with the oil- and sweat-glands, the
blood-vessels and tubercles - and then under that still the
layer of fat, the upholstering, you know, full of oil ducts,
the underpinning of the lovely female form. What is in your
mind as you work runs into your hand and has its influence -
it isn't really there, and yet somehow or other it is, and
that is what gives the lifelike
effect."
All
this was fuel to Hans Castorp's fire. His brow was flushed,
his eyes fairly sparkled, he had so much to say he knew not
where to begin. In the first place, he had it in mind to
remove the picture of Frau Chauchat from the window wall,
where it hung somewhat in shadow, and place it to better
advantage; next, he was eager to take up the Hofrat's
remarks about the constitution of the skin, which had keenly
interested him; and finally, he wanted to make some remarks
of his own, of a general and philosophical nature. which
interested him no less
mightily.
Laying
his hands upon the painting to unhook it, he eagerly be-gan:
"Yes, yes indeed, that is all very important. What I'd like
to say is - I mean, you said, Herr Hofrat, if I understood
rightly, you said: 'In another relation.' You said it was
good when there was some other relation besides the lyric -
I think that was the word you used - the artistic, that is;
In short, when one looked at the thing from another point of
view - the medical, for example. That's all so enormously to
the point, you know -I do beg your pardon, Herr Hofrat, but
what I mean is that it is so exactly and precisely right,
because after all it is not a question of any funda-mentally
different relations or points of view, but at bottom just
variations of one and the same, just shadings of it, so to
speak, I mean: variations of one and the same universal
interest, the artistic impulse itself being a part and a
manifestation of it too, if I may say so. Yes, if you will
pardon me, I will take down this picture, there s postively
no light here where it hangs, permit me to carry it over to
the sofa, we shall see if it won't look entirely - what I
meant to
/
Page 260 /
say
was: what is the main concern of the study of medicine? I
know nothing about it, of course - but after all isn't its
main con-cern with human beings? And jurisprudence - making
laws, pro- nouncing judgment - its main concern is with
human beings too. And philology, which is nearly always
bound up with the profes- sion of pedagogy? And theology,
with the care of souls, the office of spiritual shepherd?
All of them have to do with human beings, all of them are
degrees of one and the same important, the same fundamental
interest, the interest in humanity. In other words, they are
the humanistic callings, and if you go in for them you have
to study the ancient languages by way of foundation, for the
sake of formal training, as they say. Perhaps you are
surprised at my talk-ing about them like that, being only a
practical man and on the technical side. But I have been
thinking about these questions lately, m the rest-cure; and
I find it wonderful, I find it a simply priceless
arrangement of things, that the formal, the idea of form, of
beautiful form, lies at the bottom of every sort of
humanistic calling. It gives it such nobility, I think, such
a sort of disinterested- ness, and feeling, too, and - and -
courtliness - it makes a kind of chivalrous adventure out of
it. That is to say - I suppose I am ex-pressing myself very
ridiculously, but - you can see how the things of the mind
and the love of beauty come together, and that they always
really have been one and the same - in other words, science
and art; and that the calling of being an artist surely
belongs with the others, as a sort of fifth faculty, because
it too is a humanistic calling, a variety of humanistic
interest, in so far as its most im-portant theme or concern
is with man - you will agree with me on that point. When I
experimented in that line in my youth, I never painted
anything but ships and water, of course. But
notwithstanding, in my eyes the most interesting branch of
painting is and remains portraiture, because it has man for
its immediate object- that was why I asked at once if you
had done anything in that field. - Wouldn't this be a far
more favourable place for it to hang?
"
Both
of them, Behrens no less than Joachim, looked at him amazed
- was he not ashamed of this confused, impromptu ha- rangue?
But no, Hans Castorp was far too preoccupied to feel self-
conscious. He held the painting against the sofa wall, and
demanded to know if it did not get a much better light. Just
then the servant brought a tray, with hot water, a
spirit-lamp, and coffee-cups.
Behrens
motioned them into the cabinet, saying: " Then you must have
been more interested in sculpture, originally, than in
painting, I should think. Yes, of course, it gets more light
there; if you think it can stand it. I should suppose so,
because sculpture
/
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concerns
itself more purely and exclusively with the human form. But
we mustn't let the water boil
away."
"
Quite right, sculpture, " Hans Castorp said, as they went.
He forgot either to hang up or put down the picture he had
been hold- ing, but tugged it with him into the neighbouring
room. " Cer- tainly a Greek Venus or athlete is more
humanistic, it is probably at bottom the most humanistic of
all the arts, when one comes to think about
it!"
"
Well, as far as little Chauchat goes, she is a better
subject for painting than sculpture. Phidias, or that other
chap with the Mo- saic ending to his name, would have stuck
up their noses at her style of physiognomy. - Hullo, where
are you going with the ham?"
"
Pardon me, I'll just lean it here against the leg of my
chair, that will do very well for the moment. The Greek
sculptors did not trouble themselves about the head and
face, their interest was more with the body, I suppose that
was their humanism.-And the plasticity of the female form -
so that is fat, is it? "
"
That is fat," the Hofrat said concisely. He had opened a
hang-ing cabinet, and taken thence the requisites for his
coffee-making: a cylindrical Turkish mill, a long-handled
pot, a double receptacle for sugar and ground coffee, all in
brass. " Palmitin, stearin, olein," he went on, shaking the
coffee berries from a tin box into the mill, which he began
to turn. " You see I make it all myself, it tastes twice as
good. - Did you think it was ambrosia?
"
"
No, of course I knew. Only it sounds strange to hear it like
that," Hans Castorp said.
They
were seated in the comer between door and window, at a
bamboo tabouret which held an oriental brass tray, upon
which Behrens had set the coffee-machine, among the smoking
utensils. Joachim was next Behrens on the ottoman,
overflowing with cush- ions; Hans Castorp sat in a leather
arm-chair on castors, against which he had leaned Frau
Chauchat's picture. A gaily-coloured carpet was beneath
their feet. The Hofrat ladled coffee and sugar into the
long-handled pot, added water, and let the brew boil up over
the flame of the lamp. It foamed brownly in the little
onion- pattern cups, and proved on tasting both strong and
sweet.
"
Your own as well," Behrens said. " Your' plasticity' - so
far as you have any - is fat too, though of course not to
the same ex-tent as with a woman. With us fat is only about
five per cent of the body weight, in females it is one
sixteenth of the whole. Without that subcutaneous cell
structure of ours, we should all be nothing but fungoid
growths. It disappears, with time, and then come the
unaesthetic wrinkles in the drapery. The layer is thickest
on the fe-
/
Page 262 /
male
breast and belly, on the front of the thighs, everywhere, in
short, where there is a little something for heart and hand
to take hold of. The soles of the feet are fat and
ticklish."
Hans
Castorp turned the cylindrical coffee-mill about in his
hands. It was, like the rest of the set, Indian or Persian
rather than Turkish; the style of the engraving showed that,
with the bright surface of the pattern standing out against
the purposely dulled background. He looked at the design,
without immediately seeing what it was. When he did, he
blushed unawares.
"
Yes, that is a set for single gentlemen, " Behrens said. " I
keep it locked up, you see, my kitchen queen might hurt her
eyes looking at it. It won't do you gentlemen any harm, I
take it. It was given to me by a patient, an Egyptian
princess who once honoured us with a year or so of her
presence. You see, the pattern repeats itself on the whole
set. Pretty roguish, what? "
"
Yes, it is quite unusual, " Hans Castorp answered. " Ha ha!
No, it doesn't trouble me. But one can take it perfectly
seriously;
solemnly,
in fact - only then it is rather out of place on a
coffee-machine. The ancients are said to have used such
motifs on their sarcophagi. The sacred and the obscene were
more or less the same thing to
them."
"
I should say the princess was more for the second," Behrens
said. " Anyhow she still sends me the most wonderful
cigarettes, superfinissimos, you know, only sported on
first-class occasions." He fetched the garish-coloured box
from the cupboard and offered them. Joachim drew his heels
together as he received his cigarette. Hans Castorp helped
himself to his; it was unusually large and thick, and had a
gilt sphinx on it. He began to smoke - it was won-derful, as
Behrens had said.
"
Tell us some more about the skin," he begged the Hofrat; "
that is, if you will be so kind." He had taken Frau
Chauchat's portrait on his knee, and was gazing at it,
leaning back in his chair, the cigarette between his lips.
Not about the fat-layer, we know about that now. About the
human skin in general, that you know so well how to paint.
"
"
About the skin. You are interested in physiology?
"
"
Very much. Yes, I've always felt a good deal of interest in
it. The human body - yes, I've always had an uncommon turn
for it. I'vc sometimes asked myself whether I ought not to
have been a physician - it would.n't have been a bad idea,.
in a way: Because if you are interested in the body, you
must be interested m disease - specially interested, isn't
that so? But it doesn't signify, I might have been such a
lot of things - for example, a clergyman."/ Page 263
/ Indeed?
"
"
Yes, I've sometimes had the idea I should have been
decidedly in my element there."
"
How did you come to be an engineer, then?
"
"
I Just happened to - it was more or less outward
circumstances that decided the
matter."
"Well,
about the skin. What do you want to hear about your sensory
sheath? You know, don't you, that it is your outside brain -
ontogenetically the same as that apparatus of the so-called
higher centres up there in your cranium? The central nervous
system is nothing but a modification of the outer
skin-layer; among the lower animals the distinction between
central and peripheral doesn't exist, they smell and taste
with their skin, it is the only sensory organ they have.
Must be rather nice - if you can put yourself in their
place. On the other hand, in such highly differen-tiated
forms of life as you and I are, the skin has fallen from its
high estate; it has to confine itself to feeling ticklish;
that is to say, to being simply a protective and registering
apparatus - but devil-ishly on the qui vive for anything
that tries to come too close about the body. It even puts
out feelers - the body hairs, which are noth-ing but
hardened skin cells - and they get wind of the approach of
whatever it is, before the skin itself is touched. Just
between our- selves, it is quite possible that this
protecting and defending func- tion of the skin extends
beyond the physical. Do you know what makes you go red and
pale? "
"
Not very precisely."
"
Well, neither do we, ' very precisely,' to be frank - at
least, as far as blushing is concerned. The situation is not
quite clear; for the dilatory muscles which are presumably
set in action by the vaso- motor nerves haven't yet been
demonstrated in relation to the blood-vessels. How the cock
really swells his comb, or any of the other well-known
instances come about, is still a mystery, par- ticularly
where it is a question of emotional influences in play. We
assume that a connexion subsists between the outer rind of
the cerebrum and the vascular centre in the medulla. Certain
stimuli - for instance, let us say, like your being
powerfully embarrassed, set up the connexion, and the nerves
that control the blood-vessels function toward the face, and
they expand and fill, and you get a face like a turkey-cock,
all swelled up with blood so you can't see out of your eyes.
On the other hand, suppose you are in suspense, something is
going to happen - it may be something tremendously
beautiful, for aught I care - the blood-vessels that feed
the skin contract, it gets pale and cold and sunken, you
look like a dead
/
Page 264 /
man,
with big, lead-coloured eye-sockets and a peaked nose. But
the Sympathicus makes your heart thump away like a
good fellow."
"So
that is how it happens," Hans Castorp
said.
"
Something like that. Those are reactions, you know. But it
is the nature of reactions and reflexes to have a reason for
happening; we are beginning to suspect, we physiologists,
that the phenomena accompanying emotion are really defence
mechanisms, protective reflexes of the system. Goose-flesh,
now. Do you know how you come to have goose-flesh? ""Not
very clearly either, I'm
afraid."
"
That is a little contrivance of the sebaceous glands, which
se- crete the fatty, albuminous substance that oils your
skin and keeps it supple, and pleasant to feel of. Not very
appetizing, maybe, but without it the skin would be all
withered and cracked. Without the cholesterin, it is hard to
imagine touching the human skin at all. These sebaceous
glands have little erector-muscles that act upon them, and
when they do so, then you are like the lad when the princess
poured the pail of minnows over him. Your skin gets like a
file, and if the stimulus is very powerful, the hair ducts
are erected too, the hair on your head bristles up and the
little hairs on your body, like quills upon the fretful
porcupine - and you can say, like the youth in the story,
that now you know how to shiver and
shake."
"Oh,"
said Hans Castorp, " I know how already. I shiver rather
easily, on all sorts of provocation. Only what surprises me
is that the glands are erected for such different reasons.
It gives one goose-flesh to hear a slate-pencil run across a
pane of glass; but when you hear particularly beautiful
music you suddenly find you have it too, and when I was
confirmed and took my first communion, I had one shiver
after another, it seemed as though the prickling and
stickling would never leave off. Imagine those little
muscles acting for such different reasons!
"
Oh,"
Behrens said, " tickling's tickling. The body doesn't give a
hang for the content of the stimulus. It may be minnows, it
may be the Holy Ghost, the sebaceous glands are erected just
the same."
Hans
Castorp regarded the picture on his
knee.
"
Herr Hofrat," he said, " I wanted to come back to something
you said a moment ago, about internal processes, lymphatic
action, and that sort of thing. Tell us about it -
particularly about the lymphatic system, it interests me
tremendously "
"I
believe you," Behrens responded. " The lymph is the most
refined, the most rarefied, the most intimate of the body
juices. I dare say you had an inkling of the fact in your
mind ", when you
/
Page 265 /
asked.
People talk about the blood, and the mysteries of its com-
position, and what an extraordinary fluid it is. But it is
the lymph that is the juice of juices, the very essence, you
understand, ichor, blood-milk, creme de la creme; as
a matter of fact, after a fatty diet it does look like
milk." And he went on, in his lively and whimsical
phraseology, to gratify Hans Castorp's desire. And first he
characterized the blood, a serum composed of fat, albumen,
iron, sugar and salt, crimson as an opera-cloak, the product
of respira- tion and digestion, saturated with gases, laden
with waste products, which was pumped at 98.4° of heat
from the heart through the blood-vessels, and kept up
metabolism and animal warmth through- out the body - in
other words, sweet life itself. But, he said, the blood did
not come into immediate contact with the body cells. What
happened was that the pressure at which it was pumped caused
a milky extract of it to sweat through the walls of the
blood- vessels, and so into the tissues, so that it filled
every tiny interstice and cranny, and caused the elastic
cell-tissue to distend. This dis- tension of the tissues, or
turgor, pressed the lymph, after it had nicely swilled out
the cells and exchanged matter with them, into the vasa
lymphatica, the lymphatic vessels, and so back into the
blood again, at the rate of a litre and a half a day. He
went on to speak of the lymphatic tubes and absorbent
vessels; described the secretion of the breast milk, which
collected lymph from legs, abdomen, and breast, one arm, and
one side of the head; described the very delicately
constructed filters called lymphatic glands which were
placed at certain points in the lymphatic system, in the
neck, the arm-pit, and the elbow-joint, the hollow under the
knee, and other soft and intimate parts of the
body.
"
Swellings may occur in these places," Behrens explained.
In-durations of the lymphatic glands, let us say, in the
knee-pan or the arm-joint, dropsical tumours here and there,
and we base our diag- nosis on them - they always have a
reason, though not always a very pretty one. Under such
circumstances there is more than a suspicion of tubercular
congestion of the lymphatic
vessels."
Hans
Castorp was silent a little
space.
"
Yes," he said, then, in a low voice, " it is true, I might
very well have been a doctor. The flow of the breast milk -
the lymph of the legs - all that interests me very, very
much. What is the body? " he rhapsodically burst forth. What
is the flesh? What is the physical being of man? What is he
made of? Tell us this after- noon, Herr Hofrat, tell us
exactly, and once and for all, so that we mar know!" " Of
water," answered Behrens. " So you are interested in or-
/
Page 266 /
ganic
chemistry too? The human body consists, much the larger part
of it, of water. No more and no less than water, and nothing
to get wrought up about. The solid parts are only
twenty-five per cent of the whole, and of that twenty are
ordinary white of egg, protein, if you want to use a
handsomer word. Besides that, a little fat and a little
salt, that's about all."
"
But the white of egg - what is that?
"
"
Various primary substances: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxy-
gen, sulphur. Sometimes phosphorus. Your scientific
curiosity is running away with itself. Some albumens are in
composition with carbo-hydrates; that is to say, grape-sugar
and starch. In old age the flesh becomes tough, that is
because the collagen increases in the connective tissue -
the lime, you know, the most important constituent of the
bones and cartilage. What else shall I tell you? In the
muscle plasma we have an albumen called fibrin; when death
occurs, it coagulates in the muscular tissue, and causes the
rigor mortis."
"
Right-oh, I see, the rigor mortis," Hans Castorp said
blithely.
"
Very good, very good. And then comes the general analysis-
the anatomy of the grave."
"
Yes, of course. But how well you put it! Yes, the movement
becomes general, you flow away, so to speak - remember all
that water! The remaining constituents are very unstable;
without life, they are resolved by putrefaction into simpler
combinations, anor- ganic."
"
Dissolution, putrefaction," said Hans Castorp. "They are the
same thing as combustion: combination with oxygen - am I
right? "
"
To a T. Oxidization."
"
And life? "
"
Oxidization too. The same. Yes, young man, life too is prin-
cipally oxidization of the cellular albumen, which gives us
that beautiful animal warmth, of which we sometimes have
more than we need. Tut, living consists in dying, no use
mincing the matter- une destruction organique,
as some Frenchman with his native levity has called it. It
smells like that, too. If we don't think so, our judgment is
corrupted."
"
And if one is interested in life, one must be particularly
in- terested in death, mustn't one?
"
"
Oh, well, after all, there is some sort of difference. Life
is life which keeps the form through change of
substance."
"
Why should the form remain? " said Hans
Castorp
/
Page 267 /
Why?
Young man, what you are saying now sounds far from
humanistic."
"
Form is folderol."
"
Well, you are certainly in great form to-day - you're regu-
larly kicking over the traces. But I must drop out now,"
said the Hofrat. " I am beginning to feel melancholy," and
he laid his huge hand over his eyes. " I can feel it coming
on. You see, I've drunk coffee with you, and it tasted good
to me, and all of a sudden it comes over me that I am going
to be melancholy. You gentlemen must excuse me. It was an
extra occasion, I enjoyed it no end -
"
The
cousins had sprung up. They reproached themselves for having
taxed the Hofrat's patience so long. He made proper
pro-test. Hans Castorp hastened to carry Frau Chauchat's
portrait into the next room and hang it once more on the
wall. They did not need to re-traverse the garden to arrive
at their own quarters; Behrens directed them through the
building, and accompanied them to the dividing glass door.
In the mood that had come over him so unexpectedly, his
goggling eyes blinked, and the bone of his neck stuck out,
both more than ever; his upper lip, with the clipped,
one-sided moustache, had taken on a querulous
expression.
As
they went along the corridors Hans Castorp said to his
cousin: . " Confess that it was a good idea of
mine."
"
It was a change,at least," responded Joachim. .. And you
cer- tainly took occasion to air your views on a good many
subjects. It was a bit complicated for me. It is high time
now that we went in to the rest-cure, we shall have at least
twenty minutes before tea. You probably think it is folderol
to pay so much attention to it, now you've taken to kicking
over the traces. But you don't need it so much as I do,
after all. "
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