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Part 7, Chapter 4: Mynheer Peeperkorn (Continued)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Magic Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time
Coming of Age
Death and Illness
East vs. West
Abstract Ideals vs. Lived Experience
Summary
Analysis
It’s May now, and lately Peeperkorn’s sickness has considerably limited his activities. He hasn’t hosted many social gatherings, and his and Hans’s walks have been limited to short, casual strolls around the Berghof’s grounds. But one day Peeperkorn arranges an outing to a waterfall in the forests of the Flüela Valley, located about an hour’s drive away. Wehsal and Ferge join Hans, Peeperkorn, and Clavdia, and the group takes two carriages. Clavdia, Ferge, and Peeperkorn climb into one carriage, and Hans and Wehsal take the other.
While Hans’s illness seems mild at worst, Peeperkorn’s is serious enough to significantly affect his daily life. Once more, the novel emphasizes the pointless and confused nature of Hans’s behavior. It is irrational and unnecessary for him to remain at the Berghof. On top of this, he’s not getting much out of staying there: waiting for Clavdia hasn’t led her to reciprocate his love, and he hasn’t grown much as a person in his own right. The trip to the waterfall will be important to Peeperkorn, given that his illness has lately barred him from hosting social gatherings—something he desperately needs to validate his fragile, tenuous ego.
Themes
Clavdia, as she climbs into the first carriage, flashes a pitying smile at Hans, which Wehsal notices and teases Hans about. Hans accuses Wehsal of being cruel because of his own lovesickness over Clavdia. Wehsal admits this is true. Though he tried to forget Clavdia while she was away, it proved impossible: “because life is desire, and desire is life[.]” But it's not just Clavdia’s body he desires—it’s her face, specifically. And once a person desires another’s face, that’s when lust becomes love. This is when a person loves not just the flesh, but the “soul.” He curses Clavdia for having a body and a soul, and for her soul having no interest in his. Wehsal goes on and on, despite Hans’s warnings that the driver can hear and understand everything he says. Eventually Wehsal quiets down.
Hans’s impatience for Wehsal’s self-pity betrays Hans’s own self-denial. He fails to recognize the many ways in which his own lovesickness over Clavdia is just as pointless as Wehsal’s: Hans, after all, has voluntarily wasted years of his life to remain at a sanatorium, awaiting the possible return of a woman who clearly does not reciprocate his intense feelings for her. Hans’s lack of self-awareness in this passage underscores how little he has matured in all his years at the Berghof.
Themes
The carriages arrive in town to pick up Settembrini and Naphta at their lodging house. Naphta joins Clavdia, Ferge, and Peeperkorn’s carriage while Settembrini joins Hans and Wehsal’s, and then the party continues on its way. The drive into the mountain forests is beautiful, with great views of new grass and wildflowers. As they get closer to their destination, the woods take on a “picturesque, indeed exotic, eerie” character. There are hardly any pine needles on the trees, which are instead covered with moss, as though “cast under a sickly spell.” As the carriages continue onward, the sound of the waterfall grows louder and louder.
The “exotic, eerie” appearance of the beautiful, natural landscape—in particular the moss, which appears as though “cast under a sickly spell”—emphasizes the party’s warped, unnatural grasp on reality. The controlled, surreal atmosphere of the Berghof, combined with the perpetual presence of death, leaves residents unaccustomed to the life-affirming display of natural beauty they see before them now. The ominous atmosphere of the waterfall also foreshadows that something dangerous or unsettling might happen on today’s outing.
Themes
Eventually, they arrive, and everyone hops out of the carriages and stands behind Peeperkorn to admire the majestic intensity of the waterfall. After a while, they retreat from the water to set up the picnic they’ve brought with them, which includes plenty of wine, pastries, and cakes. They take their feast to some rocks beside the loud, rushing waters. Peeperkorn drinks heavily and begins to talk effusively about his usual subjects. Nobody can hear him over the waterfall, though, so everyone just nods and smiles, pretending to understand. When he finishes, a look of “ragged bitterness” passes across his lips, and not long after that, he tells everyone it’s time to go.
Peeperkorn previously condemned people who indulge in “over-refined pleasures” like smoking, fancying himself a natural, unrepressed man who enjoys the simple pleasures of a human in their natural state, unburdened by the constraints of society. Yet Peeperkorn cannot compete with the natural intensity of the waterfall: nobody can hear him over the fierce roar of its waters. His look of “ragged bitterness” implies that he has realized a troubling truth about himself : crushed by the absence of praise, he realizes that he needs others’ approval to thrive and is not as natural or free as he once thought.
Themes
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Back at the Berghof, Hans hears a knock on his door in the middle of the night. He opens the door and greets one of the nurses, who tells him Clavdia has asked that he come at once. Hans hurries to Clavdia and Peeperkorn’s living quarters and finds the door to Peeperkorn’s parlor wide open. The head nurse, Krokowski, and Behrens are all gathered around Peeperkorn’s bed. Clavdia is there, too, but her back is turned to Peeperkorn. Behrens says Peeperkorn is beyond saving, and Hans sees that Peeperkorn’s eyes are closed, and his body has begun to turn black and blue. Hans follows Behrens out of the room and asks if Peeperkorn’s death was a suicide. Behrens confirms that it was and shows Hans the small, curious syringe Peeperkorn used to do it.
The timing of Peeperkorn’s demise portrays his death by suicide as a response to the earlier disillusionment he experienced when nobody praised his speech at the waterfall. Peeperkorn, it seems, lost the will to live after the performance of his personality failed to elicit a response from its audience. His demise reflects critically on the empty promise of personality. Peeperkorn was all personality and lacked an inner life, and so his existence relied on the validation of others. Without that validation, his personality crumbles, revealing his inner hollowness.
Themes
Behrens and others exit, and finally only Hans, Clavdia, and a Malayan guard remain. Clavdia tells Hans that he had a right to be informed, and Hans agrees, noting Peeperkorn’s having extended him “the brotherhood of informal pronouns.” Now, he feels horrible that he was too embarrassed to use them in front of the others at the picnic and so avoided addressing Peeperkorn by “you” altogether. Clavdia asks if Peeperkorn knew about their history, and Hans confirms that he did—he guessed it the night Hans refused to kiss Clavdia’s forehead. Now, in honor of Peeperkorn, Hans asks if he can do so now. Clavdia bends forward and offers her forehead to Hans. The Malayan guard makes a big show of not watching the intimate exchange.
Hans seems to believe that his failure to address Peeperkorn by informal pronouns may have insulted Peeperkorn and fueled the negative feelings that compelled Peeperkorn to die by suicide. That Hans was too embarrassed to use the pronouns in front of others suggests that he has always recognized, at least on some level, that Peeperkorn was a vapid fool. Yet he ignored Settembrini’s advice to be wary of bold personalities and accepted Peeperkorn as his mentor anyway. Hans’s kiss on Clavdia’s forehead is unsatisfying and unremarkable. It reads more as an anticlimactic farewell than the hint of a future romance.
Themes
