{The Magic Mountain [continued(5)]}[10th October 1982]

[Redbook2:252-256][19821010:1330e]{The Magic Mountain [continued(5)]}[10^th October 1982]

19821010:1330

[continued]

Possibly, who is the “lovely boy”? But certainly, who is the young goatherd watching from a height; and in the original, is there the English version's ambiguity as to whom he is watching: goats or people?

In Hans Castorp's own words: 'In a way, I knew it all beforehand. But how is it a man can know all that and call it up to bring him bliss and terror both at once? Where did I get the beautiful bay with the islands, where the temple precincts, whither the eyes of that charming boy pointed me, as he stood there alone? Now I know that it is not out of our single souls we dream. We dream anonymously and communally, if each after his fashion. The great soul of which we are a part may dream through us, in our manner of dreaming, its own secret dreams, of its youth, its hope, its joy and peace — and its blood-sacrifice. Here I lie at my column and still feel in my body the actual remnant of my dream — the icy horror of the human sacrifice, but also the joy that had filled my heart to its very depths, born of the happiness and brave bearing of those human creatures in white. It is meet and proper, I hereby declare that I have a prescriptive right to lie here and dream these dreams.'*

*[Thomas Mann, 'The Magic Mountain', trans. H.T Lowe-Porter; London: Penguin, 1960, p495.]

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