
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 isββ . . . No! No, ladies and gentlemen, not that! Not that I might . . . How wrong it would be to suggest that Iββ . . . Finished, ladies and gentlemen!'
See what I mean?