Mynheer Peeperkorn

Another pinpoint portrait of a Magic Mountain character by Vincent Bourgeau. This time it's Mynheer Peeperkorn, a Dutch coffee planter from Java, who appears unexpectedly at the sanatorium with the returning Clavdia Chauchat.

He's a big but 'indistinct' personality who forms a circle with 'spear-tipped' thumb and forefinger. Frustratingly (not for his many admirers, but for the translator because German verbs are very often at the end of the sentence), he rarely finishes his thoughts:

'I repeat with maximum emphasis on this expression . . . the inviolable demand facing us is–– . . . No! No, ladies and gentlemen, not that! Not that I might . . . How wrong it would be to suggest that I–– . . . Finished, ladies and gentlemen!'

See what I mean?

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