Fingerprints Of The Gods
Graham Hancock

This page introduces chapter 45 and is absent of number

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" 'The House of Millions of years', was dedicated to Osiris,4  the 'Lord of Eternity', of whom it was said in the Pyramid texts:
                                            You have gone but you will return, you have slept, but you will awake,
                                             you have died, but you will live .  .  . Betake yourself to the waterway,
                                             fare upstream .  .  . travel about Abydos in this spirit-form of yours
                                             which the gods commanded to belong to you.  
5
                                            
The Magic Mountain

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" Anyhow, I must be stirring, and pretty fast too. " But he lay another moment, mus-ing and recalling, before he got up. " Then thank ye kindly, and  

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God be with ye, " the tears came to his eyes as he smiled. And with that he would have been off, but instead sat suddenly down again with his hat and stick in his hand, being forced to the realization that his knees would not support him. "Hullo," he thought, "this won't do. I am supposed to be back in the dining room punctually at eleven for the lecture. Taking walks up here is very beautiful - but appears to have its difficult side . Well, well, I can't stop here. I must have got stiff from lying; I shall be better as Imove about." He tried again to get on his legs and , by dint of great effort, succeeded.
      But the return home was lamentable indeed, after the high spirits of his setting forth. He had repeatedly to rest by the way feeling the colour recede from his face, and the cold sweat break out on his brow; the wild breathing of his heart took away his breath. Thus painfully he fought his way down the winding path and reached the bottom in the neighbourhood of the Kurkhaus. But here it became clear that his own powers would never take him over the stretch between him and the Berghof; and accordingly, as there was no tram and he saw no carriages for hire, he hailed a driver going towards the Dorf with a load of empty boxes and asked permission to climb into his wagon. Back to back with the man, his legs hanging down out of the end, swaying and nodding with fatigue and the jolting of the vehicle, regarded with surprise and sympathy by the passers-by, he got as far as the railway crossing where he dismounted and paid for his ride, whether much money or little he did not heed, and hurried headlong up the drive.
     "Depechez-vouz, monsieur," said to him the French concierge. "La conference de M. Krokowski vient de commencer."
Hans Castorp tossed hat and stick on the stand and sqeezed himself with much precaution, tongue between his teeth, through
The partly open glass door into the dining room, where the society of the cure sat in rows on their chairs, and on the right hand side of the room, behind a covered table adorned with a water-bottle, Dr Krokowski, in a frock-coat, stood and delivered his lecture.
                                                                                        Analysis
LUCKILY there was a vacant seat in the corner, near the door. He slipped into it and assumed an air of having been here from the beginning. The audience, hanging rapt on Dr Krokowski's lips, paid him no heed
- which was as well, for he looked rather ghastly..."

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"...Frau Chauchat sat all relaxed, with drooping  shoulders and round back; she even thrust her head forward until the vertebra at the base of the neck showed prominently above the rounded decolletage of her white blouse..."
Hans Castorp's thoughts, as he sat and looked at Frau Chau-chat's flaccid back, began to blur; they ceased to be thoughts at all and began to blur; they ceased to be thoughts at all and began to be a reverie, into which Dr. Krokowski's drawl-ing baritone, with the soft-sounding r, came as from afar. But the stillness of the room, the profound attention that rapt all the rest of the audience, had the effect of rousing him too. He looked about. Near him sat the thin haired pianist, with bent head and folded arms, listening with his mouth open. Somewhat farther on was Fraulein Engelhart, avid-eyed, with a dull red spot on each cheek; Hans Castorp saw the same signal flame on the faces of other ladies
- on Frau Magnus's the same who was wife to the brewer and lost flesh persistently. Frau Stohr sat somewhat farther back, an expression of ignorant credulity painted on her face, truly painful to behold; while the ivory-com-  

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plexioned Levi, leaning back in her chair with half-closed eyes, her hands lying open in her lap, would have looked like a corpse had not her breast risen and fallen with such profound and rhythmical breaths as to remind Hans Castorp of a mechanical waxwork he had once seen. Many of the guests had their hands curved behind their ears; some even held the
Hand in the air half-way thither, as though arrested midway in the gesture by the strength of their concentration. Lawyer Paravant, a sunburnt man who looked to have had the strength of a bull, even flicked his ear with his forefinger to make it hear better, then turned it again to catch the words that flowed from Dr. Krokowski's lips.
     And what was Dr. Krokowski saying? What was his line of thought ? Hans Castorp summoned his wits to discover, not immediately succeeding, however since he had not heard the beginning and lost still more musing on Frau Chauchat's flabby back. It was about a power, the power which
- in short, it was about the power of love. Yes of course; the subject was already given out in the general title of the whole course, and moreover, this was Dr Krokowski' special field; of what else should he be talking ? It was a bit odd, to be sure, listening to a lecture on such a theme, when previously Hans Castorp's courses had dealt only with such matters as geared transmission in ship-building. No, really, how did one go about to discuss a subject of this delicate and private nature, in broad daylight, before a mixed audience ? Dr Krowski did it by adopting a mingled termi-nology, partly poetic and partly erudite; ruthlessly scientific, yet with a vibrating, singsong delivery, which impressed young Hans Castorp as being unsuitable, but may have been the reason why the ladies looked flushed and the gentleman flicked their ears to make them hear better. In particular the speaker employed the word love in a somewhat ambiguous sense, so that you were never quite sure where you were with it, or whether he had reference to its sacred or its passionate and fleshly aspect - and this doubt gave a slightly seasick feeling. Never in all his life had Hans Castorp heard the word uttered so many times on end as he was hearing it now. When he reflected, it seemed to him he had never taken it to his own mouth, nor ever heard it from a stranger's That might not be the case, but whether it were or no, the slip-pery monosyllable, with its lingual and labial, and the bleating vowel between - it came to sound positively offensive; it sug-gested watered milk, or anything else that was pale and insipid; the more so considering the meat for b men Dr. Krokowski  

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was in fact serving up. For it was plain that when one set about it like that, one could go pretty far without shocking anybody. He was not content to allude, with equisite tact, to certain mat-ters which are known to everybody, but which most people are content to pass over in silence. He demolished illusions, he was ruthlessly enlightened, he relentlessly destroyed all faith in the dignity of silver hairs and the innocence of the sucking babe. And he wore, with his frock-coat, his neglige collar, sandals, and grey woolen socks, and, thus attired, made an impression pro-foundly otherworldly, though at the same time not a little startling to young Hans Castorp. He supported his statements with a wealth of illustration and anecdote from the books and loose notes on the table before him; several times he even quoted poetry. And he discussed certain startling manifestations of the power of love, certain extraordinary, painful, uncanny variations, which the majestic phenomenon at times displayed. It was, he said, the most unstable, the most unreliable of man's instincts the most prone of its very essence to error and fatal perversion. In the which there was nothing that should cause surprise. For this mighty force did not consist of a single impulse, it was of its nature complex; it was built up out of components which, how-ever legitimate they might be in composition, were, taken each by itself, sheer perversity. But - continued Dr. Krokowski - since we refuse, and rightly, to deduce the perversity of the whole from the perversity of its parts, we are driven to claim, for the component perversities, some part at least, though perhaps not all, of the justification which attaches to their united product. We were driven by sheer force of logic to this conclusion; Dr Krokowski implored his hearer, having arrived at it, to hold it fast. Now there were psychical correctives,  forces working in the other direction, instincts tending to conformability and regularity - he would almost have liked to characterize them as bourgeois; and these influences had the effect of merging  the perverse com-ponents into a valid and irreproachable whole: a frequent and gratifying result, which, Dr. Krokowski almost contemptuously added, was, as such, of no further concern to the thinker and the physician. But on the other hand, there were cases where this re-sult was not obtained, could not and should not be obtained; and who, Dr. Krokowski asked, would dare to say that these cases did not psychically considered, form a higher, more exclusive type? For in these cases the two opposing groups of instincts - the compulsive force of love, and the sum of the impulses urging in the other direction, among which he would particularly men-  

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tion shame and disgust - both exhibited an extraordinary and ab-normal height and intensity when measured by the ordinary bourgeois standards; and the conflict between them which took place in abysses of the soul prevented the erring instinct from attaining to that safe, sheltered and civilized state which alone could resolve its difficulties in the prescribed harmonies of the love-life as experienced by the average human being. This con-flict between the powers of love and chastity - for that was what it really amounted to - what was its issue ? It ended, apparently, in the triumph of chastity. Love was suppressed, held in dark-ness and chains, by fear, conventionality, aversion, or a tremu-lous yearning to be pure. Her confused and tumultuous claims were never allowed to rise to consciousness or to come to proof in anything like their entire strength or multiformity. But this triumph of chastity was only an apparent, a pyrrhic victory; for the claims of love could not be crippled or enforced by any such means. The love thus suppressed was not; it lived, it laboured after fulfillment in the darkest and secretest depths of the being. It would break through the ban of chastity, it would emerge - if in a form so altered as to be unrecognizable. But what then was this form, this mask, in which suppressed, uncharted love would reappear ? Dr, Krokowski asked the question, and looked along the listening rows as though in all seriousness expecting an answer. But he had to say it himself, who had said so much else already no one knew save him, but it was plain that he did. Indeed, with his ardent eyes, his black beard setting off the waxen pallor of his face, his monkish sandals and grey woolen socks, he seemed to symbolize in his own person that conflict between passion and chastity which was his theme. At least so thought Hans Castorp, as with the others he waited in the greatest suspense to hear in what form love driven below the surface would reappear. The ladies barely breathed. Lawyer Paravant rattled his ear anew, that the critical moment might find it open and receptive. And Dr.Krokowski answered his own question, and said "In the form of illness. Symptoms of disease are nothing but a disguised mani-festation of the power of love; and all disease is only love trans-formed"       So now they knew - though very probably not all of them were capable of an opinion on what they heard. A sigh passed through the assemblage, and Lawyer Paravant weightily nodded approbation as Krokowski proceeded to develop his theme. Hans Castorp for his part sat with bowed head, trying to reflect on  

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what had been said and test his own understanding of it . But he was unpractised in such exercises, and rendered still further in-capable of mental exertion by the unhappy effect of the walk he had taken. His thoughts were soon drawn off again by the sight of Frau Chauchat's back, and the arm appertaining, which was lift-ing and bending itself, close before Hans Castorp's eyes, so that the hand could hold the braids of hair.
     It made him uncomfartable to have the hand so close beneath his eye, to be forced to look at it whether he wished or no, to study it in all its human blemishes and imperfections, as though under a magnifying glass. No, there was nothing aristocratic about this stubby schoolgirl hand, with the badly cut nails. He was even not qyite sure that the ends of the fingers were perfectly clean; and the skin round the nails was distinctly bitten. Hans Castorp made a face; but his eyes remained fixed  
On Madame Chauchat's back, as he vaguely recalled what Dr. Krokowski had been saying, about counteracting influences of a bourgeois kind, which set themselves up against the power of love. - The arm, in its gentle upward curve, was better than the hand; it was scarcely clothed, for the material of the sleeve was thinner than that of the blouse, being the lightest gauze, which had the effect of lending the arm a sort of shadowed radiance, making it prettier than it might other-wise have been. It was at once both full and slender - in all prob-ability cool to the touch. No, so far as the arm went, the idea about counteracting bourgeois influences did not apply.      Hans Castorp mused, his gaze still bent on Frau Chauchat's arm. The way women dressed! They showed their necks and bosoms, they transfigured their arms by veiling them in "illusion"; they did so, the world over, to arouse our desire.
O God.how beautiful life was ! And it was just such accepted commonplaces as this that made it beautiful - for it was a commonplace that women dressed themselves alluringly, it was so well known and recognized a fact that we never consciouly realized it, but merely enjoyed it with-out a thought. And yet he had an inward conviction that we ought to think about it, ought to realize what a blessed, what a well-nigh  miraculous arrangement it was. For of course it all had a certain end and aim; it was by a definite design that women were per-mitted to array themselves with irresistable allure: it was of course for the sake of posterity, for the perpetuation of the species. Of course. But suppose a women was inwardly diseased, unfit for mother-hood - what then? What was the sense of her wearing gauze sleeves and attracting male attention to her physical parts if these  

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were actually unsound ? Obviously there was no sense; it ought to be considered immoral, and forbidden as such. For a man to take an interest in a woman inwardly diseased had no more sense than - well, than the interest Hans Castorp had once taken in Pribislav Hippe. The comparison was a stupid one; it roused memories better forgotten; he had not meant to make it, it came into his head unbidden. But at this point his musings broke off, largely because Dr. Krokowski had raised his voice and so drawn atten-tion once more upon himself. He was standing there behind his table, with his arms outstretched and his head on one side - almost, despite the frock-coat, he looked like Christ on the cross.
     It seemed that at the end of his lecture Dr. Krokowski was making propaganda for psycho-analysis; with open arms he summoned all and sundry to Come unto me," he was saying, though not in those words, "come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden." And he left no doubt of his conviction that all those present were weary and heavy-laden. He spoke of secret suffering, of shame and sorrow, of the redeeming power of the analytic. He advocated the bringing of light into the uncon-scious mind and explained how the abnormality was metamor-phosed into the conscious emotion; he urged them to have confi-dence; he promised relief. Then he let fall his arms, raised his head, gathered up his notes and went out by the corridor door, with his head in the air, and the bundle of papers held schoolmaster fashion, in his left hand against his shoulder.
      His audience rose, pushed back its chairs, and slowly began to move towards the same door, as though converging upon him from all sides, without volition, hesitatingly, yet with one accord, like the throng after the Pied Piper. Hans Castorp stood in the stream without moving, his hand on the back of his chair I am only a guest up here, he thought. Thank God I am healthy, that business has nothing to do with me; I shan't even be here for the next lecture. He watched Frau Chauchat going out, gliding along with her head thrust forward. Did she have herself psycho-ana-lysed, he wondered. And his heart began to thump. He did not notice Joachim, coming  toward him among the chairs, and started when his cousin spoke.
      "You got here at the last minute," Joachim said. "Did you go very far? How was it?"
      "Oh, very nice," Hans Castorp answered. "Yes, Iwent rather a long way. But Imust confess, it did me less good than I thought it would. I wont repeat it for the present."
        Joachim did not ask how he liked the lecture; neither did Hans  

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Castorp express an opinion. By common consent they let the sub-ject rest, both then and thereafter.
                                                                                                                                  Doubts and Consideration
1st line after heading                "TUESDAY was the last day of our hero' week up hereand accord-
                                                   ingly he found his weekly bill in his room on his return from the
                                                   morning walk..."
                                                            "...The items, set down in a calligraphic hand, came
9th  L/D                                       to one hundred and eighty francs almost exactly:..."            
 
                                                                                               ZZZaaaZZZ

 

 
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The Thermometer

1st  L / D  after heading              "HANS CASTORP'S week here ran from Tuesday to Tuesday, for on
                                                    a
Tuesday he had arrived. Two or three days before, he had gone                                                     down to the office and paid his second weekly bill, a modest ac-
4th  L/D                                        count of a round
one hundred and sixty francs, modest and cheap
                                                    even without taking into consideration the nature of some
                                                    of the advantages of a stay up here
- advantages priceless in them-
                                                    selves, though for that very reason they could not be included in
                                                    the bill
- and even without counting extras like the fortnightly
                                                    concert and Dr. Krokowski's lectures, which might conceivably have
10th  L / D                                   been included. The sum of
one hundred and sixty francs..."



18th   L / U                                 "eight hundred even. That isn't ten thousand francs a year. Cer-..."



16th   L /
U                              "...Mental arithmetic very fair," Joachim said. I never knew you were                                                      such a shot at doing sums in your head. And how broad-
                                                     minded of you to calculate it by the year like that ! You've learned
                                                     something since you've been up here..."
 
                                                                                              AAAzzzAAA
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1st line                                    "...As the result of some simple figuring, he con-
                                                    cluded that his cousin - or, speaking generally, a patient at the
3rd                                                Berghof - would need
twelve thousand francs a year to cover the
                                                     sum total of his expenses. Thus he amused himself by establishing
                                                     the fact that he, Hans Castorp, could amply afford to live up here
6th                                                 if he chose, being a man of
eighteen or nineteen thousand francs
                                                     yearly income..."                                                                                                   zzzAAAzzz
                                                                                       Mounting Misgivings.
 
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"One thing there was which pleased him: when he lay listening to tha beating of his heart - his corporeal organ -   so plainly audi-  

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ble in the ordered silence of the rest period, throbbing loud and peremptorily, as it had done almost ever since he came, the sound no longer annoyed him. For now he need not feel that it so beat of its own accord, without sense or reason or any reference to his non-corporeal part. He could say, without stretching the truth, that such a connexion now existed, or was easily induced: he was aware that he felt an emotion to correspond with the action of his heart. He needed only to think of Madame Chauchat - and he did think of her - and lo, he felt within himself the emotion proper to the heart-beats..."
 
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L/D  excluding heading  41    "...won for him the nickname of "the Kirghiz " among his school-"

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L/D                                 14     "...or to the " Kirghiz " eyes, whose grey-blue glance could some-

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                           1     "...And Pribislav looked at him, with his "Kirghiz "eyes above the prominent                                                        cheek bones

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L/D  excluding heading  17     "...there were the eyes themselves: the narrow "Kirghiz" eyes..."
L/D                                  38     "...look at him with those narrow
Kirghiz eyes - this was to be immured..."