Read Online The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann - Free Book Online Page B

living in the fourteenth century, when, against the dogged resistance of the old free patricians, tradesmen had first begun to win seats and voices in the town council—in sum, a man who opposed anything new. His active years had come during decades of violent expansion and numerous upheavals, decades of progress at a forced march, all of which constantly demanded great public courage and sacrifice. But it had not been old Castorp’s fault, God knows, that the modern spirit had enjoyed its celebrated, brilliant victories. He had held the customs of his forefathers and their old institutions in far higher regard than any expansion of the harbor at breakneck speed or the godless tomfooleries of a great city, had impeded and tempered wherever he could. And had it been up to him, the city administration nowadays would look just as old-fashioned and idyllic as his office had looked when he was in his prime.
    And this was how the old man was viewed, both during his lifetime and after, by his fellow citizens; and even though little Hans Castorp understood nothing about the affairs of government, the perceptions gained by his own calm, alert child’s eye were much the same—unspoken and therefore uncritical perceptions, though enthusiastic for all that, which when they later became conscious memories retained their exclusively positive stamp, immune to all discussion or analysis. As noted, mutual sympathy was at work here, the kind of family affection and affinity of personality that not infrequently leaps a generation. Children and grandchildren observe in order to admire, and they admire in order to learn and develop what heredity has stored within them.
    Senator Castorp was tall and gaunt. The years had bent his back and neck, but he attempted to compensate for this by pressing against the curvature, which pulled down the corners of his mouth in a kind of painful dignity, while the lips, with no supporting teeth behind them, rested on bare gums—he wore his dentures only to eat—and this counterpressure, which presumably also helped him steady his head (because it had begun to shake of late), was probably what caused him to carry himself with an austere, forward tilt and to prop his chin in the way that so pleased little Hans.
    He loved his snuff; he had a longish tortoiseshell box inlaid with gold, and snuff was also the reason he carried red handkerchiefs, the tip of one usually visible dangling from the back pocket of his frock coat. And although this harmless vice added a jaunty touch to his appearance, the ultimate effect was much more that of the license of old age, the kind of carelessness that age either consciously and merrily permits itself or brings with it, cloaked in dignified oblivion; in any case, it was the only such carelessness in his grandfather’s appearance that little Hans Castorp’s sharp eye ever observed. Both to the mind of the seven-year-old and in the memories of the adult, the everyday appearance of the old man was not what was essential and real about him. His essential reality was quite different, much more handsome and authentic than his everyday appearance. That reality, you see, was to be found in a painting—a life-size portrait that at one time had hung in the living room of Hans Castorp’s parents and had been transported along with the boy to the house on the Esplanade, where it had been given a spot above the large red silk sofa in the parlor.
    It showed Hans Lorenz Castorp in his official dress as a town councillor—the sober, even godly attire of citizens from a vanished century, a costume that later citizens, whether staid or dashing, had carried with them through the years, continuing to wear it on pompous occasions in order ceremoniously to make the past present, and the present past, and to proclaim the permanent continuity of all things and the venerable trustworthiness of their official signatures. There, large as life, Senator Castorp stood on a red-tiled floor, against a