The Magic Mountain: Chapter 3 (Part One)

 

Chapter 3

The third chapter of The Magic Mountain concerns itself exclusively with Hans Castorp’s first full day at the Berghof sanatorium. There are many ways in which we can see that this chapter is meant by Mann to be a quite formal "initiation" for Hans, as well as the reader, and a major theme of the chapter is the state of adaptation or "acclimatization," which we will discover to be a gradual process that takes much longer than the time it takes to simply become acquainted with the place. On a physical level, Mann illustrates this point most vividly by showing that Hans’ body is having difficulty adjusting to the high altitude and the rare climate of the mountain resort.

 

In a larger sense, when we think of the experience of being on the magic mountain as a mystical metaphor not only for education, but for complete personal self-discovery and transformation, it is only to be expected that such profound changes cannot occur overnight. On the contrary, upon encountering a new and strange environment such as the Berghof, there are many strange and unusual shocks of discovery. Hans finds many such odd encounters during his first day on the mountain, and we shall see, as the novel proceeds, that many things that were foreign and alien to him upon his arrival will gradually become accepted as part of the "normal way of things."

Joseph Campbell has compared Hans Castorp’s visit to the Magic Mountain to the experience of an initiate into one of the ancient Greek "mystery rites," such as the Orphics or the participants of the Eleusinian Mysteries near Athens. In these rites, which developed around the 6th century BCE, initiates would be taken, step by step through an elaborate ritual which challenged their settled view of reality at each further point of development. Those conducting the mystery realized that the ultimate revelation that a human could take away was not something that could be communicated simply and directly, all at once. Through each progressive stage, a higher level of enlightenment (often combined with fear and confusion) would be attained. Not until the very end of the mystery rite would the ultimate "secret" be revealed. In order to really "get" the message of this secret, the individual psyche had to be carefully prepared. For the ultimate "message" is not simply a fact to be learned and memorized, but a totality that must be ultimately experienced and internalized. It must become part and parcel of the individual him or herself. The individual must assimilate the ultimate knowledge and make it and essential element of their personal makeup and being.

 

Hans Castorp is just beginning his education, his transformation from a "simple" young man with unexamined values to an "enlightened" veteran of the mysteries of the mountain. These are his hesitant first steps which are recorded here in this chapter, and what he sees and experiences will often clash sharply with the assumptions with which he has lived his entire life up until now. He will even show shock, amazement, and sometimes active resistance with many of the features of sanatorium life. This is only to be expected.

 

And since we experience everything in the book from Hans Castorp’s perspective, his experiences and reactions are part and parcel of our initiation and gradual education as well. But one advantage that we have over Hans is that we always will possess a certain position of distance from him, so that we shall have to make up our own minds whether he is traveling in a progressively beneficial and healthy way toward ultimate enlightenment, or whether he is being led astray and is wandering into self-delusional or psychologically dangerous territory. Making such decisions and distinctions, we will see, will be a very difficult and challenging task. Mann does not make the journey easy for us, any more than he does for Hans. And at any point, we must recognize that he may very well be seeking to deceive us - either through Hans, through another character’s point of view, or through the comments of the narrator.

 

The Shadow of Respectability

Chapter 3 begins precisely where Chapter 1 left off. After his first night of strange and fitful dreams, Hans Castorp awakes to begin his first day at the Berghof Sanitorium. Mann’s subheading for this brief opening section is designed to reinforce the notion of Hans as a "simple," respectable, thoroughly bourgeois German. This is emphasized as the narrator describes him getting ready, describing it as "his usual, highly civilized morning routine."

 

Hans’ room, as do all the rooms at the Berghof, has an open balcony where the patients take their "rest cures." Each is separated from the adjoining balconies on either side by a thin partition, around which one may pass to move from one balcony to the other. To his immediate right is his cousin Joachim’s room. On his left, there is (he has been told) a young Russian married couple. While Hans shaves, he hears morning music drifting up into his room from his balcony, coming from a hotel below. Hans, who "love(s) music with all his heart," is enjoying the sounds. But music does not represent an intellectual or deeply spiritual experience for this simple young man. Indeed, the narrator compares its effect to that which Hans receives upon his habit of drinking a glass of porter with his breakfast: "profoundly calming, numbing, and "doze"-inducing."

 

As we picture Hans here, engulfed in thoughtless pleasure, "his head tilted to one side," we are reminded of just how "simple" and "mediocre" our protagonist is. We should fully absorb this idea and keep it in mind throughout the entire novel, because if The Magic Mountain is the story of Hans Castorp’s "education," or seen another way, his gradual "initiation" into a higher realm of understanding and being, we have to be aware just how dull and ordinary he is at the beginning. On a literary and mythical level, Mann has compared Hans Castorp to Parzival, the "pure fool" in search of the Holy Grail, not only in legend, but in the 13th-century poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, one of the first great works of German literature. Mann, like Joyce, was very fond of basing his stories and characters on long-existing myths and literary works because he recognized in them a universal meaning that would give his writings a higher, more "archetypal" sense of power. Our hero's name may even have been taken from "Hans in Luck," a German fairy-tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm, which follows a simpleton as he makes progressively foolish trades until he comes to nothing at all.

 

It has also been strongly suggested that Hans Castorp is also an allegorical embodiment of the young Weimar Republic, the democratic order founded in Germany after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. Much of The Magic Mountain will be concerned with arguments and ideas about the nature and the future of liberal Western democracy, and Mann has embedded many various perspectives of political and social ideas that the nation in which he was now residing, in 1924, must have to face. Seen from this angle, Hans’ education becomes much more critically important and universal, as it invites many questions about how and why the entire nation and culture of Germany should view and conduct itself in a new world order. Germany remains a very unique place and case in the eyes of the author, but the problems of its role within the new post-war environment of Europe are seen as crucial. Unlike many of his literary and artistic colleagues, Thomas Mann never entirely divorced his aesthetic and moral questions from the political level, believing them to be ultimately and inextricably tied together.

 

As Hans gazes out from his balcony into the courtyard garden below, he spies two different things. The first is what Mann describes as "a fantasy flag," a green-and-white banner with the snake-entwined figure of a caduceus, the symbol of medical healing. Now, the serpent is traditionally a metaphor for many things, both in Christian and pagan culture. Without going into too much detailed analysis, it can be briefly noted that it tends to represent rebirth; a snake sheds its skin, moving on anew, leaving the shell of its old self behind. The caduceus itself, a very old figure in Greek mythology also has a long history of use in astrology and alchemy, and is therefore a very fitting image to find in a magical place of transformation like the Berghof - and it is especially resonant when it is seen in a garden, suggesting as it does, the Eden myth. Still, Mann makes it clear that it is at least meant to represent medical healing.

 

But more striking is that the second thing Hans sees in the garden is the vision of an old woman in a veil, dressed entirely in black. With "a gloomy, even tragic look," this figure is obviously a potent symbol of death. In the next section, Joachim will explain that this woman is known as "Tous-les-deux," as that is all she ever says. She is from Mexico, and speaks not German and very little French. She has both her sons up here at the Berghof: one is dying, and now the second one has become ill. In her state of shocked grief, she can only mutter, "tous-les-deux," or "both of them." But ambiguously, this phrase could be interpreted as "both of us," thus implying that the person with whom she speaks could be tied inextricably to her pathetically condemned situation. Her presence in the earthly garden of healing below is, beyond a doubt, a harbinger of fate, though Hans, at this point, in his innocence, is not perceptive enough to recognize it.

 

But suddenly, Hans becomes aware of a disruption that strangely does impinge on his self-satisfied state of bourgeois, unreflective propriety, as he begins to hear the sounds of the Russian couple next door on his left, as they begin to make passionate love. This is simply too much for the young man, who becomes not only profoundly embarrassed but actually angry at the daylight impropriety of their actions. At first, Hans tries to interpret the sounds innocently through what the narrator calls his "kindheartedness." But then the narrator goes on to make Hans’ reaction more plain:

 

One could use other terms for his kindheartedness - an insipid        phrase like "purity of soul," for instance, or a more serious and beautiful word like "modesty," or disparaging words such as "avoidance of the truth" and "hypocrisy," or even a phrase about "the mystic piety of shyness" - and Hans Castorp’s reaction to the sounds from the adjoining room combined something of them all and was visible now as a shadow of respectability that darkened his face . . .

 

This "shadow of respectability" is something that Hans Castorp has acquired through living in the unnatural and conventional "world down below" where all of his beliefs and attitudes have long gone completely unexamined. It is only up here, far removed from the unreflective, simple verities of common existence, that he will have to come to terms with the essential truths of life, and it is here in room 34, on his first moments of awaking that he receives these sights and sounds of initiations, these intimations of a deeper realization that he is currently unprepared to deal with, or even recognize.

 

One of the chief reasons for Hans Castorp’s outrage at the sounds of the Russian couple’s perceived impropriety is the fact that at least one of them is "ill." To Hans’ mind, we will discover, illness is a kind of sanctified state, and it seems to his a moral violation to mix it with such base, animalistic urges. This is actually not an unusual psychological position for many "normal" people to take, whether it is a rational or humane attitude or not. But instead of reflecting, Hans simply reacts. And the result of his anger can suddenly be seen as a return of the flush and heat to his freshly shaved face that he had felt the night before.

 

Hans Castorp’s initiation - indeed his transformation - has indubitably begun.

 

Breakfast

Hans’ first formal initiation into life at the Berghof begins at breakfast: the first of four large sumptuous meals that the patients take communally every day. He will soon come to discover that life at the sanitorium circles around two main rituals that occupy the occupants’ time - meals and the rest-cures. There are many smaller rituals to which all of them, more or less, submit - but these are the primary ways that people pass away the seemingly endless time at the resort. Hans is happily surprised at the sheer size and quality of breakfast - actually this is just first breakfast, as another, second one will occur just a couple of hours later.

 

How and why do the patients eat so much at the Berghof? Mann does not come out and explicitly say so, but it seems as if the altitude must affect the metabolism of the guests, as they continually down massive quantities of food, much more that one would think normally possible of a human being, all apparently without putting on a great deal of weight. Of course, they are all sick people, so in some strange, mysterious way, the food does not seem to fully nourish them the way it might a normal, healthy "flatlander." Metaphorically speaking, we might surmise that Mann is poking fun at the pre-war European’s thoughtless life of endless, thoughtless consumption. These people dwell in a kind of fairy-tale land where the ignoring of the facts of reality seems to - temporarily at least - have no discernible effect upon them. Perhaps they can consume so much because they are so self-absorbed and oblivious.

 

The mealtime gathering also, as I indicated, serves as one of the primary time-passing functions of the institution. Here, all the patients gather together in one room and carry out a large communal meal that has all the hallmarks of a formal ritual - it is almost a "communion" of sorts, and we shall soon come to see that the regular repetition of the meals is what divides and orders the patients days. This four-time-daily interruption is one of the very few things that both breaks up the monotony of time here, while at the same time reinforcing its sameness.

 

The dining hall has is very formally laid out as well. We note that there are seven tables here, thereby establishing the room as totemically related to the novel’s "magic" number and letting us know that its is very much a central part of the mountain’s mystery quality. Each patient is assigned a place at a different table, and each table seems to have its own character and even its own ethnicity. For example, there is not only a "Russian table," but there is a "good Russian table" and a "bad Russian table." The distinction between the two is never clearly pointed out, but the residents seem to accept the distinction without question. (Indications in the text seem to imply that the Russian diners at the "good" table are somewhat more "Westernized" and socially refined than the other. Whether Mann makes this formal distinction himself or whether it is simply a prejudice of the other European guests remains unclear.)

 

Hans finds himself sitting at the head of the table where his cousin Joachim eats. The other end of the table is perpetually left open - as it is on all the tables - for the two doctors, who rotate around and sit at all of them at different times. Thus, there is established a sense of balance and order under authority that reigns here, and no one can complain that they are being unfairly "snubbed" by the powers that be.

 

The diners at Hans’ table are all described, and without exception, they are kind of ridiculous, trivial caricatures of silly people, epitomized in the extreme by an ignorant and pretentious lady named Frau Stöhr, who babbles endlessly and is continually making some kind of verbal gaffe or other. The witless silliness of this woman seems to represent, for Mann, a kind of cartoonish portrait of the average pre-war European bourgeois citizen: shallow, pretentious, self-absorbed, and completely oblivious to the impending catastrophe building up around them.

 

It is to be remembered that all of these patients represented at the table - with the exception of Hans - are quite ill. But Mann goes out of his way to demonstrate the kind of pretend-world in which they all seem to dwell in a kind of denial of their condition. (The implication is that the average European is in a similar state of self-denial about the conditions of himself and the sickness of his social environment.) Hans is actually "disappointed" that everything seems so normal and "congenial": "one had no sense of being in a place of misery."

 

The idea of death is also a hidden secret, a forbidden subject, and Joachim tells Hans that the staff generally dispose of the dead while the patients are all together at meals. We shall see that the topic of death is considered abhorrent or indecent - a terrible breach of etiquette and decorum - especially in the dining hall. Here, ignorance, consumption and pretension all reign supreme. Both the institution and the patients collude to hide the truth and to create the appearance and feel that everyone gathered there is a perfectly healthy and prosperous tourist, happily and carelessly away on holiday.

 

Two more incidents occur before the cousins leave the dining hall which make an impression on Hans Castorp. The first comes in the form of an unpleasant disturbance to him - someone enters the room and lets the door slam loudly behind them, hard enough even to make the panes of glass in the door rattle. Hans does not see who the rude individual is who creates the awful din, but he becomes highly agitated - even offended. The narrator tells us than Hans had always abhorred the banging of doors, and he indeed becomes unusually incensed here. This over-sensitivity tells us just how fastidious and proper our young hero is. The fact that he becomes so acutely annoyed is an indication of just how obsessed he is with order and propriety. Little does he know just how much that door slamming is a harbinger of the great changes he is destined to undergo over the next few weeks.

 

For the door-slamming disrupter of Hans’ tightly organized world will be eventually revealed to be none other that the young Russian woman, Clavdia Chauchat, whose presence will cast such a deep and powerful spell over young Castorp. Hans is still oblivious here, as he does not see her, but it is significant that his initial experience of her has the effect of rattling his senses and his brain. Clavdia’s appearance in Han’s life will have much the effect of a powerful banging on his consciousness, completely disrupting and disordering his shallow and highly predictable world.

 

The second event is the arrival of Dr. Behrens, the director of the Berghof Sanatorium. Behrens is one of the most marvelously drawn characters of the book. He is tall and gaunt, with enormous hands and feet, a shock of white hair and perpetually purple cheeks. Although a medical man and a thorough professional, Dr. Behrens is gifted with an extraordinarily expansive way of expressing himself. He is humorous, sarcastic and very overly-friendly in a boisterous, comical manner.

 

He greets Hans excitedly, welcomes him aboard, and pronounces him a "civilian." He quickly observes, however, that Hans would be "a better patient" than his cousin, Joachim, who is resistant to treatment and is so impatient to get back home so he can begin his military training. Behrens senses Hans’ "talent" at being ill, quite astutely, because he observes that the young man would be in no hurry to get away from the confines of the hospital and would be quite satisfied in sitting around doing nothing.

 

Behrens observes Han is somewhat "green," and without any warning or permission, he abruptly pulls down the skin under the young man’s eye with his enormous fingers and pronounces him "anemic." The director thinks that it is a good thing that Hans has come up for a visit, and even advises him to stick to the patients’ regimen during the time he will be staying there, even going so far as to suggest that he should monitor his temperature regularly (with a "mercury cigar").

 

Dr. Behrens is like the grand caretaker of this bizarre, insane estate, and his appearance and sense of authority are quite influential on susceptible people like Hans Castorp. His position and his bearing almost make him something like the "high priest" of the institute. Later in the book, he will even take on a kind of satanic quality. Here he appears as the great tempter, and thus, Hans is being prodded along, being encouraged to become more and more like "the people up here." Though Behrens seems affable enough, his real intent is to push Hans forward along the road to his initiation. We shall see that this temptation will be strong, indeed, and Hans will soon be on his way to a total transition of his life up on the magic mountain.

 

Teasing/Viaticum/Interrupted Merriment

After first breakfast, the cousins decide to go outside for a walk. Hans Castorp is anxious to smoke one of his precious cigars, which is branded by the feminine name of Maria Mancini. Hans’ "Marias" are an extreme fetish with him. Dr. Behrens, we will discover later, is also a cigar aficionado (he has already referred to a thermometer as a "mercury cigar"), and both men will refer to their smokes as if they were women, calling them "her."

 

Hans’ obsession with smoking is indeed extreme, and he actually chides his tubercular cousin for not indulging in the "absolutely first-rate pleasure." Indeed, Hans observes that if he could not smoke during the day, he would not even be able to get out of bed. He describes the love of tobacco in terms that only a true smoker (or ex-smoker) could appreciate:

 

 ". . . if a man has a good cigar, then he’s home safe, nothing, literally nothing can happen to him. It’s the same as when you’re lying on the beach, because there you lie on the beach, you know? and you don’t need anything else . . . as long as I had my cigar, I’d carry on, that much I know, it could bring be through anything."

 

What are we to make of this extraordinary devotion to this habit? As with so many things in the Magic Mountain, the love of cigars is looked at through a very extreme point of view. Hans doesn’t just like cigars - he loves them. By his own admission, he practically lives for them. Thomas Mann, by the way, was known to be quite a connoisseur of fine cigars and remained an avid smoker for throughout his long life. But smoking will soon come under attack in the book, and from several directions. It seems ironically obvious that Mann may be making fun of his own fetishism here. It is almost a point of pride that in The Magic Mountain, there will not be a point of view that is spared from being subjected to severe scrutiny and ridicule, including Mann’s own. Such relentless satire - including self-satire - are practically the materials from which the book is constructed.

 

The most important thing about Hans’ affection for his beloved Maria Mancinis, however, is the sense of reassurance that their regular use affords him. As he himself notes, whenever he is smoking he feels "safe" - the cigar for him is a comforting companion to his life, an "ordinary" pleasure that tells him that he is quite at home wherever he goes and needn’t feel any stress or anxiety. The bourgeois comfort that he gets from his "Marias" reinforces his sense of a carefree, unreflective life. This is precisely why it is so distressing to him that when he lights his cigar on the walk with Joachim, he can’t get the proper flavor from it, and it makes him feel somewhat as if he is sick at his stomach. It is quite significant that the simple, pleasurable joys of ordinary "flatland" life do not function as they should up on the mountain.

 

Hans gets terribly frustrated with the failure of his cigar to satisfy him as usual, and after trying repeatedly to get satisfaction, he finally gets frustrated and throws it away. He mentally associates the "disappointment" of the cigar with the discomfort of his flushed face, and he is probably correct. Both physical effects are the result of his "acclimation" to this strange new environment. But Hans is too unthinking and superficial to understand just how much of a change he is actually going through at this point.

 

As they talk, Hans tells Joachim, quite casually, that while he is up there visiting, that he will take Dr. Behrens’ advice and follow the proscribed habits of his cousin and the other patients for the sake of his health, as well as for the experience. This decision, of course, is a further commitment to his initiation, and though Hans does not take the sanitorium’s regimen seriously at this point, it certainly foreshadows his gradual transition from "civilian" to dedicated convert.

 

One of the noticeable things about all of Hans’ conversations with his cousin is his apparent lack of sensitivity concerning Joachim’s own sickness. He apparently does not take his cousin’s disease very seriously and assumes that he will become well and return to the "flatlands" presently. This is a holiday for Hans Castorp, and he treats Joachim the same as if they were back home, and does not notice that many of the things that he says could bother his cousin considerably. One could argue that this apparent insensitivity is simply more evidence of Hans’ "innocence," as he has not yet learned to appreciate the seriousness and importance of things on the mountain.

 

Their conversation is abruptly interrupted by the sudden appearance of another "apparition," designed to communicate another message about the true nature of the Berghof and its residents. As Joachim has trouble with an incline that sets him to coughing, Hans thoughtlessly moves ahead of him. There he is suddenly confronted by another group of patients coming his way. When they reach him, one of the young women, whose name we learn is Hermine Kleefeld looks at Hans and startles him by "whistling" from somewhere deep inside her body. Hans is stunned and confused, and as he looks back after the party has passed him, he can see that they are apparently laughing at his shocked reaction.

 

When Joachim catches up and Hans tells him what happened, his cousin explains that all of those patients have had a surgical procedure on one of their lungs and it must be periodically filled with gas. They stick together and call themselves the ‘Half-Lung Club.’ Hermine Kleefeld has discovered that the gas in her lung can actually produce a whistling sound, and she uses it to shock people.

 

Hans is simply overwhelmed with this news. And once again, in his shock, he resorts to laughter, as he did over the strange, macabre things that Joachim had told him the night before. Hans’ laughter is not so much a result of insensitivity as it is "simplicity" and ignorance. The strange things at the Berghof are so beyond his ordinary frame of reference that he laughs, partly out of astounded confusion, and probably also as a defense mechanism, so as he will not get emotionally overwhelmed by these encounters. He marvels, however, that the members of the ‘club’ themselves can seem so happy and carefree. Joachim, who has been here a long time, can see more deeply into their psychology, however:

 

"My God," he said, "they’re so free. I mean, they’re young and time plays no role in their lives, and they may very well die. Why should they go around with long faces? I sometimes think that illness and death aren’t really serious matters, that it’s all more like loafing around, and that, strictly speaking, things are only serious down below in real life. I think maybe you’ll come to understand that in due time, after you’ve been up here with us a little longer."

 

This statement is quite significant, especially coming from Joachim, who we shall see, is very practical and rarely, if ever, philosophizes. It is a simple observation coming from someone who has spent the last five months of his young life idly sitting around, hoping to get better so he can return to his military duties. Joachim has had time to clearly see the facts of life, and living in constant contact with disease and death has made him somewhat immune from the extreme reactions that an ordinary person from "down below", someone who lives in ignorance and denial of death, would have. He correctly predicts Hans’ future transformation as well.

 

While Hans can reasonably see why the ‘Half-Lung Club’ could be so carefree, he is absolutely horrified when Joachim tells him the story of "the little Hujus girl." This was a happy-go-lucky teenager who became so ill that she was on the verge of dying. Joachim describes how he accidently passed her door while the priest was attempting to administer the "last rites" to her, while she hid under the covers, kicking and screaming. Suddenly, the fear of death is very real and tangible to Hans, while for Joachim it is merely something that had to be done.

 

He goes on to tell Hans that Dr. Behrens sometimes has to scold patients who refuse to die. "Don’t make such a fuss!" he tells them. This is absolutely too much for Hans Castorp, who reacts with anger and indignation. In his childhood-conditioned sentimentalization of death, this is simply unacceptable behavior. It breaks good decorum. He insists that "a dying man deserves a certain amount of respect."

 

"A dying man has something nobler about him than your average rascal strolling about, laughing and making money and stuffing his belly."

 

We recall the sentimental notions that Hans holds about death, developed in childhood from observing the solemn funerals of his parents and grandfather. Indeed, to Hans, there is something sacred and holy about death, however this attitude is held on a very shallow level - he has not investigated the subject philosophically. It is almost purely a manner of form. In such a similar way death as a subject is treated by society at large, particularly in the German middle class. It does not stimulate great reflection or even emotion, but is merely a situation to which one must adopt the appropriate attitude. Strangely enough, here at the sanatorium, where death is a constant companion, the same puerile attitude pervades the population.

 

Nevertheless, in the middle of his objections, Hans is once again overcome by a fit of laughter. All the strange and macabre goings-on at the Berghof have an undeniably funny side to them, too. It is only natural and human to laugh at such extremities of death and disease as sending bodies down a bobsled run or a "Half-Lung Club" simply because they seem so absurdly out of the realm of common experience.

 

Joachim demands that Hans keep quiet, however, as someone is coming along the path. As the cousins sit on the bench, the figure approaches them, stops, then faces them, leaning on his cane.

 

Satana

This is none other than Herr Ludovico Settembrini, the Italian rationalist, humanist and pedagogue who will prove to be one of Hans Castorp’s primary "teachers" on the magic mountain, and one of the most important characters in the novel. Settembrini is, ultimately, the personification of pure reason, especially as represented in the great Greco-Roman tradition of the European West, as embodied from the Renaissance up to the present day. On a political level, Settembrini represents the progressive, liberal bourgeois democratic movement, which he is strongly convinced is destined to be the salvation of Western Europe and ultimately, the human race. He is an enemy of all traditional hierarchical forms of social organization, as well as the "superstitions" of religion and any notions of aristocracy. Passionately devoted to democratic principles and armed with the faith of the infinite power of human reason, Settembrini is both a revolutionary and an idealist of the highest degree.

 

Mann has drawn this character so fully and completely that he never ceases to be fascinating, even when he is mouthing long-winded platitudes or is involving himself in a one-sided or contradictory position, and the reason is largely because of his extraordinary eloquence and his seemingly endless supply of witticisms. He is a charming character, profound yet often silly, but never boring. His function in the novel is most important, indeed, not only as a representation of one way of looking at humanity and its political and moral destiny, but as a self-appointed "educator" for Hans. I have said that he is one of Castorp’s primary teachers, but it may be more accurate to say that he is the young man’s primary teacher, as Settembrini’s beliefs and values can be seen to form the essential "core" of what is to be learned from the rationalist tradition of Western Europe.

 

Herr Settembrini’s point of view may be primary, but that does not mean that it goes unchallenged. All throughout the novel, other characters and situations will appear that display the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the Italian’s perspective, and we (along with Hans) will be compelled to see him in a comical and ludicrous light. Indeed, his shabby dress and dandyish appearance immediately provokes Hans to think of him as an "organ grinder," hardly an image to help us take him seriously. He is also a pompous and overblown windbag, yet his vast knowledge and incisive wit keeps us (and Hans) ever-respectful and interested in what the man has to say.

 

In short, with Settembrini, Mann has created one of the most consistently appealing, interesting, yet certainly flawed characters in all of modern literature. Settembrini’s pronouncements throughout the novel will almost always compel us to take his side, but both because of his self-certain, one-sided ridiculousness, along with the gradual appearance of opposition figures (especially his reactionary intellectual antithesis, Leo Naphta in the second half of the novel), we are constantly challenged, along with Hans, as to exactly how far we can go to agree with his absolutist perspectives. This will be one of the central educational challenges for Hans Castorp atop the mountain, and it will be one of ours as well.

 

It has been often noted that Settembrini forms a representation of Germany’s postwar Weimar Republic, with all its potential for progressive reform, while at the same time revealing its many potential inadequacies. Settembrini’s perspective marks one possible direction that Germany, along with the rest of Western Europe can travel, and while Mann sees and feels much to admire here, he also remains a fundamental critic and maintains a skeptical (and sometimes cynical) unwillingness to commit completely to the man’s liberal ideas. There are many reasons for this, and the book will deal with many of these in extraordinary detail.

 

It must be noted that Herr Settembrini bears more than a passing resemblance in his attitudes and commitments to the author’s brother, fellow-novelist Heinrich Mann. While his brother was an enthusiastic, committed, flag-waving liberal, Thomas remained less enthusiastic and difficult to convince about what he believed was an over-simplified view both of Germany and of humanity in general. Therefore, Settembrini’s appearance and centrality in The Magic Mountain in many ways can be seen as Thomas Mann’s intellectual and aesthetic process of examining and challenging the attractive, yet still somewhat disturbing ethic that his brother represents. Seen in a larger metaphorical context, this imaginary showdown between brothers can easily be interpreted as an analogy for a dialogue between all the family members of Germany, and by extension, Europe itself.

 

The catastrophe of the Great War had laid many "certainties" to rest, or at least challenged them severely, and Mann, among others of his day, certainly felt that Europe in the 1920s found itself at a great crossroads. While Settembrini’s liberal democratic rationalism seems to promise great hope for the future, the very fact that his complacent certainty about the perpetual progress of the West is implicitly criticized (if not ridiculed) by the reader’s knowledge that such devoted, uncritical idealism would fail to prevent World War I. The "great gulf" that exists separating the eras before and after the war force us to view Settembrini in a more critical light than we might otherwise be inclined to - and certainly with more suspicion than Hans Castorp does. However, it is difficult to deny that to a very large degree, Settembrini’s arguments throughout the book are extraordinarily compelling and pull a strong degree of force upon the reader - as they no doubt did for their author.

 

Finally, the name "Settembrini," it must be pointed out, contains "sette," Italian for "seven," thus continuing the motif of using this number as a spiritual sign. Ultimately, Settembrini must be seen as Hans Castorp’s primary mythical guide to higher initiation upon the magic mountain.

 

Interestingly, perhaps puzzlingly, the subheading of this section is Satana, Italian for "Satan." This is explained, partially, almost immediately in their conversation, as Joachim introduces Settembrini to Hans Castorp as "a literary man," who wrote the German obituary for the Italian poet Giosuè Carducci (1835-1907). Settembrini affirms this, proudly stating that he was one of the poet’s disciples, that he "sat at his feet." He then tells an astonished Hans that Carducci once wrote a "hymn to the Devil." He begins to recite:

 

"’O salute, O Satana, O ribellione, O forza vindice della ragione’"

 

Settembrini does not translate the stanza he quotes, which in English is:

 

Hail, O Satan,
O rebellion,

O you avenging force

Of human reason!

 

The historical Carducci was an outspoken atheist, and a proclaimed enemy of the Catholic Church and all "superstition." His conception of "Satan," therefore, is the poetic embodiment of human rationality and freedom. Carducci was also a political radical and revolutionary, calling for the unification of Italy. His "Inno a Satana" ("Hymn to Satan," 1863) was in part a demand for the independence of the papal states from the Vatican.

 

Herr Settembrini is, therefore, like his master before him, an ardent, militant humanist who is completely dedicated to the march of human reason. Why Mann stresses his identification with Satan is a curious question however. Is there a literary purpose here? If Mann is making a reference to Goethe, we could come to see Settembrini as a parallel to Mephistopheles (the devil) in Faust, and that parallel can certainly be held, up to a point. While it is true that in Goethe’s poem, Mephistopheles does serve as Faust’s teacher "for all that can be known," Hans Castorp is hardly an obsessive Faustian intellect. He does, however, become increasingly curious and inquisitive throughout the novel, and much of his fascination with the nature of things is the direct result of the stimulation he receives from Settembrini.

 

Both the poem and the myth are obviously very powerful metaphors for Mann, however, and we shall see a direct reference to the "Walpurgis Nacht" section of Goethe’s poem as the climax to Chapter 5. (Mann will also return to Goethe for the publication of his 1947 novel, actually titled Doctor Faustus.)

 

At any rate, Settembrini takes pains to distinguish Carducci’s Satan from the "other" Satan. This one, the more conventional "Devil," "considers labor an abomination because he fears it." The notion of "two Devils" is confusing to Hans, for whom the Devil is merely "a figure of speech." But Settembrini is pointing to two separate traditions of thought here, and in Carducci’s updated mythology, "Satan," the rebel, is a great supporter of human labor, and approves wholeheartedly, as does Settembrini himself, of Hans’ choice of profession. (Interestingly, Hans, who does not like to work, would in this case probably be more attracted to the "other" Devil.)

 

Settembrini asks, "How many months have our Minos and Rhadamanthus saddled you with?" These two brothers, mythical kings of Crete, were believed by the Greeks to be the judges of the underworld. While Settembrini is referring to the sanatorium’s two doctors, it will become clear in some of his later statements that "Rhadamanthus" refers specifically to Dr. Behrens, who also appears to the Italian as "the other Satan." For it is Dr. Behrens who pronounces the "sentences" of how long the patients must remain here in idleness before they are pronounced as "cured" and may return to active, meaningful lives below. The image of Dr. Behrens as a "Satanic" figure is to be a recurring motif throughout the book, and it makes it even more curious as to why Mann has chosen to identify Settembrini with "Satan" here, even if he is a "different" Satan.

 

Presumably, both men exert a pull upon Hans Castorp, both for the fate of his life (and metaphorically, for his soul) and for the different types of educational influences they have upon him. While Settembrini is a humanist, Behrens represents purely non-valuational science in its strictest form. While we will discuss this more fully later in the book, Behrens looks at people from a completely objective, detached point of view, and his scientific, medical outlook helps contribute to his "cynicism." Settembrini highly disapproves of Dr. Behrens, considers him a calculating, money-grubbing opportunist, and basically sees him as an enemy to human freedom and dignity.

 

Settembrini is shocked to discover that Hans is not a patient, but merely a visitor to the Berghof, and is particularly surprised to hear that he only plans to stay for three weeks. Such a short time is nothing up here, and Settembrini tells Hans that "Our smallest unit of time is the month." He returns to Greek mythology and compares Hans to "Odysseus in the realm of shades," who has descended into the underworld to visit with the dead. When Hans points out that he has actually travelled over five thousand feet upwards, Settembrini assures him that that perception was "an illusion." From Settembrini’s point of view, the patients at the sanatorium are the dead, the damned. "We are creatures who have fallen to great depths."

 

Herr Settembrini is speaking jokingly, mockingly, but he does have a point. Like Odysseus, Hans Castorp has removed himself from the living, working day-to-day world and is visiting with phantoms - ill people with nothing to do and no certain future. It is a kind of limbo world, and once again, like Odysseus (or Aenis), Hans is in a peculiar position to learn of things that he could not imagine in the "normal world" he has left behind. And one of the "Satans" in this underworld is now acting as a gatekeeper to that world: he is informing Hans precisely where he is. He will soon offer himself to become his official guide.

 

The two doctors pass before them, and Settembrini takes the opportunity to make sarcastic comments about the both of them. Hans laughs and remarks about Settembrini’s way of speaking, which the Italian calls "graphic." He argues that maliciousness is the beginning of knowledge and chides Hans for being "too sluggish" in forming opinions. He makes his case for playing the role of the young man’s "educator" even more explicit:

 

"We humanists all have a pedagogic streak. Gentlemen, the historical connection between humanism and pedagogy only proves the psychological basis of that connection. One should not deny the humanist his position as an educator - indeed it cannot be denied to him, for he alone observes the tradition of man’s dignity and beauty. There came a time when he took over from the priest . . . the education of youth to himself."

 

Herr Settembrini thus places himself and his humanistic culture in an historical perspective, suggesting that enlightened rationalistic humanity has taken over the function of what he regards as the superstitious realm of the past. In effect, he is pronouncing his position as the "new priest" of modern society, and is implicitly suggesting that Hans take him for his tutor and guide. (He will make this offer in a more formal manner in a later chapter.)

 

Meanwhile, the Italian has continued chattering for so long that he has not even noticed that the three of them have already returned to the sanitorium and gotten onto the elevator. He is still talking when the door opens for Hans and Joachim to depart for their rooms. Mann thus parodies the humanist as a pompous windbag, although throughout the novel, Settembrini’s advice and perspective will be very important for Hans, and he must take his point of view very seriously - though never unconditionally or absolutely.

to be continued . . .