Chapter + 

III + 

Drawing the Veil + 

He had been so utterly weary, he had feared to oversleep; but he was on his legs rather earlier than usual, and had a superfluity of leisure in which to perform the accustomed ritual of his morning toilet, in which a rubber tub, a wooden bowl of green lavender soap, and the accompanying little brush played the principal parts. He had even time to do some unpacking and moving in. As he covered his cheeks with scented lather and drew over them the blade of his silver-plated “safety,” he recalled his confused dreams and shook his head indulgently over so much nonsense, with the superior feeling a man has when shaving himself in the clear light of reason. He did not feel precisely rested, yet had a sense of morning freshness. + 

With powdered cheeks, in his Scotch-thread drawers and red morocco slippers, he walked out on the balcony, drying his hands. The balcony ran across the house and was divided into small separate compartments by opaque glass partitions, which did not quite reach to the balustrade. The morning was cool and cloudy. Trails of mist lay motionless in front of the heights on one side and the other, while great cloud-masses, grey and white, hung down over the distant peaks. Patches and bands of blue showed here and there; now and then a gleam of sunshine lighted up the village down in the valley, till it glistened whitely against the dark fir-covered slopes. Somewhere there was music, very likely in the same hotel where there had been a concert the evening before. The subdued chords of a hymn floated up; after a pause came a march. Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him in much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze. He listened well pleased, his head on one side, his eyes a little bloodshot. + 

He could see below him the winding road up to the sanatorium, by which he had come the night before. Among the dewy grass of the sloping terrace short-stemmed, star-shaped gentians stood out. Part of the level ground had been enclosed for a garden, with flowerbeds, gravel paths, and an artificial grotto under a stately silver fir. A hall, with reclining-chairs and a galvanized roof, opened towards the south; near it stood a flagpole, painted reddish-brown, on which the flag fluttered open now and then on its cord. It was a fancy flag, green and white, with the caduceus, the emblem of healing, in the centre. + 

A woman was walking in the garden, an elderly lady, of melancholy, even tragic aspect. Dressed all in black, a black veil wound about her dishevelled grey-black hair, with wrinkled brow and coal-black eyes that had hanging pouches of skin beneath them, she moved with rapid, restless step along the garden paths, staring straight before her, her knees a little bent, her arms hanging stiffly down. The ageing face in its southern pallor, with the large, wried mouth drawn down on one side, reminded Hans Castorp of a portrait he had once seen of a famous tragic actress. And strange it was to see how the pale, black-clad woman unconsciously matched her long, woeful pace to the music of the march. + 

He looked down upon her with pensive sympathy; it seemed to him the sad apparition darkened the morning sunshine. But in the same instant he became aware of something else, something audible: certain noises penetrating to his hearing from the room on the left of his own, which was occupied, Joachim had said, by a Russian couple. Again he felt a discrepancy; these sounds no more suited the blithe freshness of the morning than had the sad sight in the garden below⁠—rather they seemed to befoul the air, make it thick, sticky. Hans Castorp recalled having heard similar sounds the evening before, though his weariness had prevented him from heeding them: a struggling, a panting and giggling, the offensive nature of which could not long remain hidden to the young man, try as he good-naturedly did to put a harmless construction on them. Perhaps something more or other than good nature was in play, something to which we give a variety of names, calling it now purity of soul, which sounds insipid; again by that grave, beautiful name of chastity; and yet again disparaging it as hypocrisy, as “hating to look facts in the face”; even ascribing it to an obscure sense of awe and piety⁠—and, in truth, something of all these was in Hans Castorp’s face and bearing as he listened. He seemed to be practising a seemly obscurantism; to be mentally drawing the veil over these sounds that he heard; to be telling himself that honour forbade his taking any cognizance of them, or even hearing them at all⁠—it gave him an air of propriety which was not quite native, though he knew how to assume it on occasion. + 

With this mien, then, he drew back from the balcony into his room, in order not to listen further to proceedings which, for all the giggling that went with them, were plainly in dead earnest, even alarming. But from indoors the noise could be heard even more plainly. He seemed to hear a chase about the room; a chair fell over; someone was caught and seized; loud kissing ensued⁠—and the music below had changed to a waltz, a popular air whose hackneyed, melodious phrases accompanied the invisible scene. Hans Castorp stood towel in hand and listened, against his better judgment. And he began to blush through the powder; for what he had all along seen coming was come, and the game had passed quite frankly over into the bestial. “Good Lord!” he thought. He turned away and made as much noise as possible while he concluded his toilet. “Well, at least they are married, as far as that goes,” he said to himself. “But in broad daylight⁠—it’s a bit thick! And last night too, I’m sure. But of course they are ill, or at least one of them, or they wouldn’t be here⁠—that may be some excuse. The scandalous part of it is, the walls are so thin one can’t help hearing everything. Simply intolerable. The place is shamefully jerry-built, of course. What if I should see them, or even be introduced? I simply couldn’t endure it!” Here Hans Castorp remarked with surprise that the flush which had mounted in his freshly shaven cheek did not subside, nor its accompanying warmth: his face glowed with the same dry heat as on the evening before. He had got free of it in sleep, but the blush had made it set in again. He did not feel the friendlier for this discovery towards the wretched pair next door; in fact he stuck out his lips and muttered a derogatory word in their direction, as he tried to cool his hot face by bathing it in cold water⁠—and only made it glow the more. He felt put out; his voice vibrated with ill humour as he answered to his cousin’s knock on the wall; and he appeared to Joachim on his entrance like anything but a man refreshed and invigorated by a good night’s sleep. + 

Breakfast + 

“Morning,” Joachim said. “Well, that was your first night up here. How did you find it?” + 

He was dressed for out-of-doors, in sports clothes and stout boots, and carried his ulster over his arm. The outline of the flat bottle could be seen on the side pocket. As yesterday, he wore no hat. + 

“Thanks,” responded Hans Castorp, “it was well enough, I won’t try to judge yet. I’ve had all sorts of mixed-up dreams, and this building seems to possess the disadvantage of being porous⁠—the sound goes straight through it. It’s annoying.⁠—Who is that dark woman down in the garden?” + 

Joachim knew at once whom he meant. + 

“Oh,” he said, “that’s Tous-les-deux. We all call her that up here, because it’s the only thing she says. Mexican, you know; doesn’t know a word of German and hardly any French, just a few scraps. She has been here for five weeks with her eldest son, a hopeless case, without much longer to go. He has it all over, tubercular through and through, you might say. Behrens says it is much like typhus, at the end⁠—horrible for all concerned. Well, two weeks ago the second son came up, to see his brother before the end⁠—handsome as a picture; both of them were that, with eyes like live coals⁠—they fluttered the dovecots, I can tell you. He had been coughing a bit down below, but otherwise quite lively. Well, he no sooner gets up here than he begins to run a temperature, high fever, you know, 103.1°. They put him to bed⁠—and if he gets up again, Behrens says, it will be more good luck than good management. But it was high time he came, in any case, Behrens says.⁠—Well, and since then the mother goes about⁠—whenever she is not sitting with them⁠—and if you speak to her, she just says: ‘Tous les deux!’ She can’t say any more, and for the moment there is no one up here who understands Spanish.” + 

“So that’s it,” Hans Castorp said. “Will she say it to me, when I get to know her, do you think? That will be queer⁠—funny and weird at the same time, I mean.” His eyes looked as they had yesterday, they felt hot and heavy, as if tired with weeping, and yet brilliant too, with the gleam that had been kindled in them yesterday at the sound of that strange, new cough on the part of the gentleman rider. He had the feeling that he had been out of touch with yesterday since waking, and had only now picked up the threads again where he laid them down. He told his cousin he was ready, sprinkling a few drops of lavender-water on his handkerchief as he spoke and dabbing his face with it, on the brow and under the eyes. “If you like, we can go to breakfast, tous les deux,” he recklessly joked. Joachim looked with mildness at him, then smiled his enigmatic smile of mingled melancholy and mockery⁠—or so it seemed, for he did not express himself otherwise. + 

After looking to his supply of cigars Hans Castorp took coat and stick, also, rather defiantly, his hat⁠—he was far too sure of himself and his station in life to alter his ways and acquire new ones for a mere three weeks’ visit⁠—and they went out and down the steps. In the corridor Joachim pointed to this and that door and gave the names of the occupants⁠—there were German names, but also all sorts of foreign ones⁠—with brief comments on them and the seriousness of their cases. + 

They met people already coming back from breakfast, and when Joachim said good morning, Hans Castorp courteously lifted his hat. He was tense and nervous, as a young man is when about to present himself before strangers⁠—when, that is, he is conscious that his eyes are heavy and his face red. The last, however, was only true in part, for he was rather pale than otherwise. + 

“Before I forget it,” he said abruptly, “you may introduce me to the lady in the garden if you like, I mean if it happens that way, I have no objection. She would just say: ‘Tous les deux’ to me, and I shouldn’t mind it, being prepared, and knowing what it means⁠—I should know how to look. But I don’t wish to know the Russian pair, do you hear? I expressly don’t wish it. They are a very ill-behaved lot. If I must live for three weeks next door to them, and nothing else could be arranged, at least I needn’t know them. I am justified in that, and I simply and explicitly decline.” + 

“Very good,” Joachim said. “Did they disturb you? Yes, they are barbarians, more or less; uncivilized, I told you so before. He comes to the table in a leather jacket, very shabby, I always wonder Behrens doesn’t make a row. And she isn’t the cleanest in this world, with her feather hat. You may make yourself quite easy, they sit at the ‘bad’ Russian table, a long way off us⁠—there is a ‘good’ Russian table, too, you see, where the nicer Russians sit⁠—and there is not much chance of you coming into contact with them, even if you wanted to. It is not very easy to make acquaintance here, partly from the fact that there are so many foreigners. Personally, as long as I’ve been here, I know very few.” + 

“Which of the two is ill?” Hans Castrop asked. “He or she?” + 

“The man I think. Yes, only the man,” Joachim answered, absently. They passed among the hat- and coat-racks and entered the light, low-vaulted hall, where there was a buzzing of voices, a clattering of dishes, and a running to and fro of waitresses with steaming jugs. + 

There were seven tables, all but two of them standing lengthwise of the room. They were good-sized, seating each ten persons, though not all of them were at present full. A few steps diagonally into the room, and they stood at their places; Hans Castorp’s was at the end of a table placed between the two crosswise ones. Erect behind his chair, he bowed stiffly but amiably to each tablemate in turn, as Joachim formally presented him; hardly seeing them, much less having their names penetrate his mind. He caught but a single name and person⁠—Frau Stöhr, whom he perceived to have a red face and greasy ash-blond hair. Looking at her he could quite credit the malapropisms Joachim told of. Her face expressed nothing but ill-nature and ignorance. He sat down, observing as he did so that early breakfast was taken seriously up here. + 

There were pots of marmalade and honey, basins of rice and oatmeal porridge, dishes of cold meat and scrambled eggs; a plenitude of butter, a Gruyère cheese dropping moisture under a glass bell. A bowl of fresh and dried fruits stood in the centre of the table. A waitress in black and white asked Hans Castorp whether he would drink coffee, cocoa or tea. She was small as a child, with a long, oldish face⁠—a dwarf, he realized with a start. He looked at his cousin, who only shrugged indifferently with brows and shoulders, as though to say: “Well, what of it?” So he adjusted himself as speedily as possible to the fact that he was being served by a dwarf, and put special consideration into his voice as he asked for tea. Then he began eating rice with cinnamon and sugar, his eyes roving over the table full of other inviting viands, and over the guests at the six remaining tables, Joachim’s companions and fellow victims, who were all inwardly infected, and now sat there breakfasting. + 

The hall was done in that modern style which knows how to give just the right touch of individuality to something in reality very simple. It was rather shallow in proportion to its length, and opened in great arched bays into a sort of lobby surrounding it, in which serving-tables were placed. The pillars were faced halfway up with wood finished to look like sandalwood, the upper part white-enamelled, like the ceiling and upper half of the walls. They were stencilled in gay-coloured bands of simple and lively designs which were repeated on the girders of the vaulted ceiling. The room was further enlivened by several electric chandeliers in bright brass, consisting of three rings placed horizontally one over the other and held together by delicate woven work, the lowest ring set with globes of milky glass like little moons. There were four glass doors, two on the opposite wall, opening on the verandah, a third at the bottom of the room on the left, leading into the front hall, and a fourth, by which Hans Castorp had entered through a vestibule, as Joachim had brought him down a different stair from the one they had used yesterday evening. + 

He had on his right a plain-looking woman in black, with a dull flush on her cheeks, the skin of which was downy-looking, as an older person’s often is. She looked to him like a seamstress or home dressmaker, the idea being suggested by the fact that she took only coffee and buttered rolls for breakfast; since his childhood he had always somehow associated dressmakers with coffee and buttered rolls. On his left sat an English spinster, also well on in years, very ugly, with frozen, withered-looking fingers. She sat reading her home letters, which were written in round hand, and drinking tea the colour of blood. Next her was Joachim, and then Frau Stöhr, in a woollen blouse of Scotch plaid. She held her left hand doubled up in a fist near her cheek as she ate, and drew her upper lip back from her long, narrow, rodent-like teeth when she spoke, obviously trying to make an impression of culture and refinement. A young man with thin moustaches sat next beyond. His facial expression was of one with something bad-tasting in his mouth, and he ate without a word. He had come in after Hans Castorp was already seated, with his chin sunk on his breast; and sat down so, without even lifting his head in greeting, seeming by his bearing plumply to decline being made acquainted with the new guest. He was, perhaps, too ill to have thought of or care for appearances, or even to take any interest in his surroundings. Opposite him there had sat for a short time a very lean, light-blonde girl who emptied a bottle of yogurt on her plate, ladled it up with a spoon, and took herself off. + 

The conversation at table was not lively. Joachim talked politely with Frau Stöhr, inquired after her condition and heard with proper solicitude that it was unsatisfactory. She complained of relaxation. “I feel so relaxed,” she said with a drawl and an underbred, affected manner. And she had had 99.1° when she got up that morning⁠—what was she likely to have by afternoon? The dressmaker confessed to the same temperature, but she on the contrary felt excited, tense, and restless, as though some important event were about to happen, which was certainly not the case; the excitation was purely physical, quite without emotional grounds. Hans Castorp thought to himself that she could not be a dressmaker after all; she spoke too correctly, even pedantically. He found her excitation, or rather the expression of it, somehow unsuitable, almost offensive, in so homely and insignificant a creature. He asked her and Frau Stöhr, one after the other, how long they had been up here, and found that one had five, the other seven months to her credit. Then he mustered his English to inquire of his neighbour on the right what sort of tea she was drinking (it was made of rose-hips) and if it tasted good, which she almost passionately affirmed; then he watched people coming and going in the room; the first breakfast, it appeared, was not regarded as a regular meal, in any strict sense. + 

He had been a little afraid of unpleasant impressions, but found himself agreeably disappointed. The room was lively, one had not the least feeling of being in a place of suffering. Tanned young people of both sexes came in humming, spoke to the waitresses, and fell to upon the viands with robust appetite. There were older people, married couples, a whole family with children, speaking Russian, and half-grown lads. The women wore chiefly close-fitting jackets of wool or silk⁠—the so-called sweater⁠—in white or colours, with turnover collars and side pockets; they would stand with hands thrust deep in these pockets, and talk⁠—it looked very pretty. At some tables photographs were being handed about⁠—amateur photography, no doubt⁠—at another stamps were being exchanged. The talk was of the weather, of how one had slept, of what one had “measured in the mouth” on rising. Nearly everybody seemed in good spirits, probably on no other grounds than that they were in numerous company and had no immediate cares. Here and there, indeed, sat someone who rested his head on his hand and stared before him. They let him stare, and paid no heed. + 

Hans Castorp gave a sudden angry start. A door was slammed⁠—it was the one on the left, leading into the hall, and someone had let it fall shut, or even banged it, a thing he detested; he had never been able to endure it. Whether from his upbringing, or out of a natural idiosyncrasy, he loathed the slamming of doors, and could have struck the guilty person. In this case, the door was filled in above with small glass panes, which augmented the shock with their ringing and rattling. “Oh, come,” he thought angrily, “what kind of damned carelessness was that?” But at the same time the seamstress addressed him with a remark, and he had no time to see who the transgressor had been. Deep creases furrowed his blond brows, and his face was contorted as he turned to reply to his neighbour. + 

Joachim asked whether the doctors had come through. Yes, someone answered, they had been there once and left the room just as the cousins entered. Then it would be better not to wait, Joachim thought. An opportunity for introducing his cousin would surely come in the course of the day. But at the door they nearly ran into Hofrat Behrens, as he entered with hasty steps, followed by Dr. Krokowski. + 

“Hullo-ullo there! Take care, gentlemen! That might have been rough on all of our corns!” He spoke with a strong low-Saxon accent, broad and mouthingly. “Oh, so here you are,” he addressed Hans Castorp, whom Joachim, heels together, presented. “Well, glad to see you.” He reached the young man a hand the size of a shovel. He was some three heads taller than Dr. Krokowski; a bony man, his hair already quite white; his neck stuck out, his large, goggling bloodshot blue eyes were swimming in tears; he had a snub nose, and a close-trimmed little moustache, which made a crooked line because his upper lip was drawn up on one side. What Joachim had said about his cheeks was fully borne out; they were really purple, and set off his head garishly against the white surgeon’s coat he wore, a belted smock of more than knee-length, beneath which showed striped trousers and a pair of enormous feet in rather worn yellow laced boots. Dr. Krokowski too was in professional garb; but his smock was of some shiny black stuff and made like a shirt, with elastic bands at the wrists. It contrasted sharply with the pallor of his skin. His manner suggested that he was present solely in his capacity as assistant; he took no part in the greeting, but a certain expression at the corners of his mouth betrayed the fact that he felt the strain of his subordinate position. + 

“Cousins?” the Hofrat asked, motioning with his hand from one to the other of the two young men and looking at them with his bloodshot eyes. “Is he going to follow the drums like you?” he addressed Joachim, jerking his head at Hans Castorp. “God forbid, eh? I could tell as soon as I saw you”⁠—he spoke now directly to the young man⁠—“that you were a layman; there’s something civilian and comfortable about you, not like our sabre-rattling corporal here! You’d be a better patient than he is, I’ll wager. I can tell by looking at people, you know, whether they’ll make good patients or not; it takes talent, everything takes talent⁠—and this myrmidon here hasn’t a spark. Maybe he shows up on the parade-ground, for aught I know; but he’s no good a’ being ill. Will you believe it, he’s always wanting to clear out! Badgers me all the time, simply can’t wait to get down there and be skinned alive. There’s doggedness for you! Won’t give us even a measly half-a-year! And yet it’s quite pretty up here; I leave it to you if it isn’t, Ziemssen, what?⁠ ⁠… Well, your cousin will appreciate us, even if you don’t. He’ll get some fun out of it. There’s no shortage in the lady market here, either; we have the most charming females. At least, some of them are very picturesque on the outside. But you ought to have better colour yourself, you know, if you want to please the sex. ‘The golden tree of life is green,’ as the poet says⁠—but it’s a poor colour for the complexion, all the same. Totally anaemic, of course,” he broke off, and without more ado put up his index and middle fingers and drew down Hans Castorp’s eyelid. “Precisely! Totally anaemic, as I was saying. You know it wasn’t such a bad idea of yours to let your native Hamburg shift for itself awhile. Great institution, Hamburg⁠—simply revels in humidity⁠—sends us a tidy contingent every year. But if I may take the occasion to give you the benefit of my poor opinion⁠—sine pecunia, you understand, quite sine pecunia⁠—I would suggest that you do just as your cousin does, while you are up here. You couldn’t turn a better trick than to behave for the time as though you had a slight tuberculosis pulmonum, and put on a little flesh. It’s curious about the metabolism of protein with us up here. Although the process of combustion is heightened, yet the body at the same time puts on flesh.⁠—Well, Ziemssen, slept pretty well, what?⁠ ⁠… Splendid! Then get on with the out-of-doors exercise⁠—but not more than half an hour, you hear? And afterwards stick the quicksilver cigar in your face, eh? And be good and write it down, Ziemssen! That’s a conscientious lad! Saturday I’ll look at the curve. Your cousin better measure too. Measuring can’t hurt anybody. Morning, gentlemen. Have a good time⁠—morning⁠—morning⁠—” Krokowski joined him as he sailed off down the hall, swinging his arms palms backward, directing to right and left the question about sleeping well, which was answered on all sides in the affirmative. + 

Banter. Viaticum. Interrupted Mirth + 

“Very nice man,” Hans Castorp said, as after a friendly nod to the lame concierge, who was sorting letters in his lodge, they passed out into the open air. The main entrance was on the southwest side of the white building, the central portion of which was a storey higher than the wings, and crowned by a turret with a roof of slate-coloured tin. You did not issue from this side into the hedged-in garden, but were immediately in the open, in sight of the steep mountain meadows, dotted with single fir-trees of moderate size, and writhen, stunted pines. The way they took⁠—it was the only one they could take, outside the drive going down to the valley⁠—rose by a gentle ascent to the left, behind the sanatorium, past the kitchen and domestic offices, where huge dustbins stood at the area rails. Thence it led in the same direction for a goodish piece, then made a sharp bend to the right and mounted more rapidly along the thinly wooded slopes. It was a reddish path, firm and yet rather moist underfoot, with boulders here and there along the edge. The cousins were by no means alone upon it: guests who had finished breakfast not long after them followed hard upon their steps, and groups of others, already returning, approached with the stalking gait of people descending a steep incline. + 

“Very nice man,” repeated Hans Castorp. “He has such a flow of words I enjoyed listening to him. ‘Quicksilver cigar’ was capital, I got it at once.⁠—But I’ll just light up a real one,” he said, pausing, “I can’t hold out any longer. I haven’t had a proper smoke since yesterday after luncheon. Excuse me a minute.” He opened his automobile-leather case, with its silver monogram, and drew out a Maria Mancini, a beautiful specimen of the first layer, flattened on one side as he particularly liked it; he cut off the tip slantingly with a sharp little tool he wore on his watch-chain, then, striking a tiny flame with his pocket apparatus, puffed with concentration at the long, blunt-ended cigar until it was alight. “There!” he said. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, we can get on with the exercise. You don’t smoke⁠—out of sheer doggedness, of course.” + 

“I never do smoke,” answered Joachim; “why should I begin up here?” + 

“I don’t understand it,” Hans Castorp said. “I never can understand how anybody can not smoke⁠—it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak⁠—or at least of a first-class pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke⁠—though of course that is more or less of an exaggeration. But a day without tobacco would be flat, stale, and unprofitable, as far as I am concerned. If I had to say to myself tomorrow: ‘No smoke today’⁠—I believe I shouldn’t find the courage to get up⁠—on my honour, I’d stop in bed. But when a man has a good cigar in his mouth⁠—of course it mustn’t have a side draught or not draw well, that is extremely irritating⁠—but with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him⁠—literally. It’s just like lying on the beach: when you lie on the beach, why, you lie on the beach, don’t you?⁠—you don’t require anything else, in the line of work or amusement either.⁠—People smoke all over the world, thank goodness; there is nowhere one could get to, so far as I know, where the habit hasn’t penetrated. Even polar expeditions fit themselves out with supplies of tobacco to help them carry on. I’ve always felt a thrill of sympathy when I read that. You can be very miserable: I might be feeling perfectly wretched, for instance; but I could always stand it if I had my smoke.” + 

“But after all,” Joachim said, “it is rather flabby-minded of you to be so dependent on it. Behrens is right, you are certainly a civilian. He meant it for a sort of compliment, I dare say; but the truth is, you are a civilian⁠—incurable. But then, you are healthy, you can do what you like,” he added, and his eyes took on their tired look. + 

“Yes, healthy except for the anaemia,” said Hans Castorp. “That was certainly straight from the shoulder, his telling me I look green. But it is true⁠—I’ve noticed myself that I look green in comparison with the rest of you up here, though it never struck me down home. And it was nice of him to give me advice gratis like that⁠—‘sine pecunia,’ as he put it. I’ll gladly undertake to do as he says, and live just as you do. After all, how else should I do while I’m up here? And it can’t do me any harm; suppose I do put on a little flesh, then, in God’s name⁠—though it sounds a bit disgusting, you will admit.” + 

Joachim coughed slightly now and then as they walked, it seemed to strain him to go uphill. When he did so for the third time, he paused and stood still with a frown. “Go on ahead,” he said. Hans Castorp hastened to do so, without looking round. Then he slackened his pace, and finally almost stopped, as it seemed to him he must have got a good distance ahead of Joachim. But he did not look round. + 

A troop of guests of both sexes approached him. He had seen them coming along the level path halfway up the slope; now they were stalking downhill directly towards him; he heard their voices. They were six or seven persons of various ages: some in the bloom of youth, others rather older. He took a good look at them, from the side, as he walked with bent head, thinking about Joachim. They were tanned and bareheaded, the women in sweaters, the men mostly without overcoats or even walking-sticks, all of them like people who have just gone casually out for a turn in the open. Going downhill involves no sustained muscular effort, only an agreeable process of putting on the brakes in order not to finish by running and tripping head over heels; it is really nothing more than just letting yourself go; and thus the gait of these people had something loose-jointed and flighty about it, which communicated itself to the appearance of the whole group and made one almost wish to be of their lively party. + 

They came close up to him, he saw their faces clearly. No, they were not all brown: two of the ladies were, on the contrary, distinctly pale; one of them thin as a lath, and ivory-white of complexion, the other shorter and plump, disfigured by freckles. They all looked at him, smiling rather boldly. A tall young girl in a green sweater, with untidy hair and foolish, half-open eyes, brushed past Hans Castorp, nearly touching him with her arm. And as she did so she whistled⁠—oh, impossible! Yes, she did though; not with her mouth, indeed, for she did not pucker the lips, but held them firmly closed. She whistled from somewhere inside, and looked at him with her silly, half-shut eyes⁠—it was an extraordinarily unpleasant whistle, harsh and penetrating, yet hollow-sounding; a long-drawn-out note, falling at the end, like the sound made by those rubber pigs one buys at fairs, that give out the air in a wailing key as they collapse. The sound issued, inexplicably, from her breast⁠—and then, with her troop, she had passed on. + 

Hans Castorp stood and stared. In a moment he turned round, understanding at least so much, that the atrocious thing must have been a joke, a put-up job; for he saw over his shoulder that they were laughing as they went, that a stodgy, thick-lipped youth, whose coat was turned up in an unseemly way about him so that he could put both hands in his trouser pockets, turned his head and laughed quite openly. Joachim approached. He had greeted the group with his usual punctiliousness, almost pausing, and bowing with heels together; now he came mildly up to his cousin. + 

“Why are you making such a face?” he asked. + 

“She whistled,” answered Hans Castorp. “She whistled out of her inside as she passed. Will you have the goodness to explain to me how?” + 

“Oh!” Joachim said, and laughed curtly. “Nonsense, she didn’t do it with her inside. That was Hermine Kleefeld, she whistles with her pneumothorax.” + 

“With her what?” Hans Castorp demanded. He felt wrought up, without knowing why. His voice was between laughter and tears as he added: “You can’t expect me to understand your lingo.” + 

“Oh, come along,” Joachim said. “I can explain it to you as we go. You looked rooted to the spot! It’s a surgical operation, they often perform it up here. Behrens is a regular dab at it. When one of the lungs is very much affected, you understand, and the other one fairly healthy, they make the bad one stop functioning for a while, to give it a rest. That is to say, they make an incision here, somewhere on the side, I don’t know the precise place, but Behrens has it down fine. Then they fill you up with gas⁠—nitrogen, you know⁠—and that puts the cheesy part of the lung out of operation. The gas doesn’t last long, of course; it has to be renewed every two weeks; they fill you up again, as it were. Now, if that keeps on a year or two, and all goes well, the lung gets healed. Not always, of course; it’s a risky business. But they say they have had a good deal of success with it. Those people you saw just now all have it. That was Frau Iltis, with the freckles, and the thin, pale one was Fräulein Levi, that had to lie so long in bed, you know. They have formed a group, for of course a thing like the pneumothorax brings people together. They call themselves the Half-Lung Club; everybody knows them by that name. And Hermine Kleefeld is the pride of the club, because she can whistle with hers. It is a special gift, by no means everybody can do it. I can’t tell you how it is done, and she herself can’t exactly describe it. But when she has been walking rather fast, she can make it whistle, and of course she does it to frighten people, especially when they are new to the place. Also, I believe she uses up nitrogen when she does it, for she has to be refilled once a week.” + 

Then it was that Hans Castorp laughed. His excitement, while Joachim was speaking, had fixed for its outlet upon laughter rather than tears; and he laughed as he walked, his hand over his eyes, his shoulders bent, shaken by a succession of subdued chuckles. + 

“Are they incorporated?” he asked as soon as he could speak. His voice sounded weak and tearful with suppressed laughter. “Have they any bylaws? Pity you aren’t a member, you could get me in as a guest, as⁠—as associate half-lunger.⁠—You ought to ask Behrens to put you out of commission, then perhaps you could learn to whistle too; it must be something one could learn⁠—well, that’s the funniest thing ever I heard in my life!” he finished, heaving a deep sigh. “I beg your pardon for speaking of it like this, but they seem very jolly over it themselves, your pneumatic friends. The way they were coming along⁠—and to think that was the Half-Lung Club. Tootle-ty-too, she went at me⁠—she must be out of her senses! It was utter cheek⁠—will you tell me why they behave so cheekily?” + 

Joachim sought for a reply. “Good Lord,” he said, “they are so free⁠— I mean, they are so young, and time is nothing to them, and then they may die⁠—perhaps⁠—why should they make a long face? Sometimes I think being ill and dying aren’t serious at all, just a sort of loafing about and wasting time; life is only serious down below. You will get to understand that after a while, but not until you have spent some time up here.” + 

“Surely, surely,” Hans Castorp said. “I’m sure I shall. I already feel great interest in the life up here, and when one is interested, the understanding follows.⁠—But what is the matter with me⁠—it doesn’t taste good,” he said, and took his cigar out of his mouth to look at it. “I’ve been asking myself all this time what the matter was, and now I see it is Maria. She tastes like papier mâché, I do assure you⁠—precisely as when one has a spoilt digestion. I can’t understand it. I did eat more than usual for breakfast, but that cannot be the reason, for she usually tastes particularly good after a too hearty meal. Do you think it is because I had such a disturbed night? Perhaps that is how I got out of order. No, I really can’t stick it,” he said, after another attempt. “Every pull is a disappointment, there is no sense in forcing it.” And after a hesitating moment he tossed the cigar off down the slope, among the wet pine-boughs. “Do you know what I think it has to do with?” he asked. “I feel convinced it is connected with this damned heat I feel all the time in my face. I have suffered from it ever since I got up. I feel as though I were blushing the whole time, deuce take it! Did you have anything like that when you first came?” + 

“Yes,” said Joachim. “I was rather queer at first. Don’t think too much of it. I told you it isn’t so easy to accustom oneself to the life up here. But you will get right again after a bit. Look, that bench is in a pretty place. Let’s sit down awhile and then go home. I must take my cure.” + 

The path had become level. It ran now in the direction of Davos-Platz, some third of the height, and kept a continuous view, between high, sparse, windblown pines, of the settlement below, gleaming whitely in the bright air. The bench on which they sat leaned against the steep wall of the mountainside, and near them a spring in an open wooden trough ran gurgling and plashing to the valley. + 

Joachim was for instructing his cousin in the names of the mist-wreathed Alpine heights which seemed to enclose the valley on the south, pointing them out in turn with his alpenstock. But Hans Castorp gave the mountains only a fleeting glance. He sat bent over, tracing figures on the ground with the ferrule of his cityish silver-mounted walking-stick. There were other things he wanted to know. + 

“What I meant to ask you,” he began, “the case in my room had died just before I got here; have there been many deaths, since you came?” + 

“Several, certainly,” answered Joachim. “But they are very discreetly managed, you understand; you hear nothing of them, or only by chance afterwards; everything is kept strictly private when there is a death, out of regard for the other patients, especially the ladies, who might easily get a shock. You don’t notice it, even when somebody dies next door. The coffin is brought very early in the morning, while you are asleep, and the person in question is fetched away at a suitable time too⁠—for instance, while we are eating.” + 

“H’m,” said Hans Castorp, and continued to draw. “I see. That sort of thing goes on behind the scenes, then.” + 

“Yes⁠—for the most part. But lately⁠—let me see, wait a minute, it might be possibly eight weeks ago⁠—” + 

“Then you can hardly say lately,” Hans Castorp pounced on him crisply. + 

“What? Well, not lately, then, since you’re so precise. I was just trying to reckon. Well, then, some time ago, it was, I got a glimpse behind the scenes⁠—purely by chance⁠—and I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was when they brought the Sacrament to little Hujus, Barbara Hujus⁠—she was a Catholic⁠—the Last Sacrament, you know, Extreme Unction. She was still about when I first came up here, and she could be wildly hilarious, regularly giggly, like a little kid. But after that it went pretty fast with her, she didn’t get up any more⁠—her room was three doors off mine⁠—and then her parents arrived, and now the priest was coming to her. It was while everybody was at tea, not a soul in the passages. But I had gone to sleep in the afternoon rest and overslept myself, I hadn’t heard the gong and was a quarter of an hour late. So that at the decisive moment I wasn’t where all the others were, but behind the scenes, as you call it; as I go along the corridor, they come toward me, in their lace robes, with the cross in front, a gold cross with lanterns⁠—it made me think of the schellenbaum they march with, in front of the recruits.” + 

“What sort of comparison is that?” Hans Castorp asked, severely. + 

“It looked like that to me⁠—I couldn’t help thinking of it. But listen. They came towards me, marching, quick step, three of them, so far as I remember: the man with the cross, the priest, with glasses on his nose, and a boy with a censer. The priest was holding the Sacrament to his breast, it was covered up, and he had his head bent on one side and looked very sanctified⁠—it is their holy of holies, of course.” + 

“Exactly,” Hans Castorp said. “And just for that reason I wonder at your making the comparison you did.” + 

“Yes, but wait a bit⁠—if you had been there, you wouldn’t have known what kind of face you would make remembering it afterwards. It was the sort of thing to give you bad dreams⁠—” + 

“How?” + 

“Like this: I ask myself how I am supposed to behave, under the circumstances. I had no hat to take off⁠—” + 

“There, you see, don’t you?” Hans Castorp interrupted him again. “You see now, one ought to wear a hat. Naturally I’ve noticed that none of you do up here; but you should, so you can have something to take off when it is proper to do so. Well, but what then?” + 

“I stood against the wall,” Joachim went on, “as respectfully as I could, and bent over a little when they were by me⁠—it was just at little Hujus’s door, number twenty-eight. The priest seemed to be pleased that I saluted; he acknowledged very courteously and took off his cap. But at the same time they came to a stop, and the ministrant with the censer knocks, and lifts the latch, and makes way for his superior to enter. Just try to imagine my sensations, and how frightened I was! The minute the priest sets his foot over the threshold, there begins a hullabaloo from inside, a screaming such as you never heard the like of, three or four times running, and then a shriek⁠—on and on without stopping, at the top of her lungs: Ah‑h‑h‑h! So full of horror and rebellion, and anguish, and⁠—well, perfectly indescribable. And in between came a gruesome sort of begging. Then it suddenly got all dulled and hollow-sounding, as though it had sunk down into the earth, or were coming out of a cellar.” + 

Hans Castorp had turned with violence to face his cousin. “Was that the Hujus?” he asked abruptly. “And how do you mean⁠—out of a cellar?” + 

“She had crawled down under the covers,” said Joachim. “Imagine how I felt! The priest stood on the threshold and spoke soothingly, I can see now just how he stuck his head out and drew it back again while he talked. The cross-bearer and the acolyte hesitated, and couldn’t get in. I could see between them into the room. It was just like yours and mine, the bed on the side wall left of the door, and people were standing at the head, the relatives of course, the parents, talking soothingly at the bed, where you could see nothing but a formless mass that was begging and protesting horribly, and kicking about with its legs.” + 

“You say she kicked?” + 

“With all her might. But it did her no good, she had to take the Sacrament. The priest went up to her, and the two others went inside the room, and the door closed. But first I saw little Hujus’s head come up for a second, a shock of blond hair, and look at the priest with staring eyes, that were without any colour, and then with a wail go down under the sheet again.” + 

“And you tell me all that now for the first time?” Hans Castorp said, after a pause. “I can’t understand how you came not to speak of it yesterday evening. But, good Lord, she must have had strength, to defend herself like that. That takes strength. They ought not to fetch the priest before one is quite weak.” + 

“She was weak,” responded Joachim.⁠—“Oh, there’s so much to tell, one doesn’t have time to pick and choose. She was weak enough! It was only the fright gave her so much strength. She was in a fearful state when she saw she was going to die; and she was such a young girl, it was excusable, after all. But grown men behave like that too, sometimes, and it’s deplorably feeble of them, of course. Behrens knows how to treat them, he takes just the right tone in such cases.” + 

“What kind of tone?” Hans Castorp asked with drawn brows. + 

“ ‘Don’t behave like that,’ he tells them,” Joachim answered. “At least, that is what he told somebody lately⁠—we heard it from the Directress, who was present and helped to hold the man. He was one of those who make a regular scene at the end, and simply won’t die. So Behrens brought him up with a round turn: ‘Do me the favour not to behave like that,’ he said to him; and the patient became quite calm and died as quietly as you please.” + 

Hans Castorp slapped his thigh and threw himself back against the bench, looking up at the sky. + 

“I say, that’s pretty steep,” he cried. “Goes at him like that, and simply tells him not to behave that way! To a dying man! But after all, a dying man has something in a way⁠—sacred about him. One can’t just⁠—perfectly coolly, like that⁠—a dying man is sort of holy, I should think!” + 

“I don’t deny it,” said Joachim. “But when one behaves as feebly as that⁠—” + 

“No,” persisted Hans Castorp, with a violence out of proportion to the opposition he met, “I insist that a dying man is above any chap that is going about and laughing and earning his living and eating his three meals a day. It isn’t good enough”⁠—his voice quavered⁠—“it isn’t good enough, for one to calmly⁠—just calmly”⁠—his words trailed off in a fit of laughter that seized and overcame him, the laughter of yesterday, a profound, illimitable, body-shaking laughter, that shut up his eyes and made tears well from beneath their lids. + 

“Sh-h!” went Joachim, suddenly. “Keep quiet,” he whispered, and nudged his uncontrollably hilarious cousin in the side. Hans Castorp looked up through tears. + 

A stranger was approaching them from the left, a dark man of graceful carriage, with curling black moustaches, wearing light-coloured check trousers. He exchanged a good morning with Joachim in accents agreeable and precise, and then remained standing before them in an easy posture, leaning on his cane, with his legs crossed. + 

Satana + 

His age would have been hard to say, probably between thirty and forty; for though he gave an impression of youthfulness, yet the hair on his temples was sprinkled with silver and gone quite thin on his head. Two bald bays ran along the narrow scanty parting, and added to the height of his forehead. His clothing, loose trousers in light yellowish checks, and too long, double-breasted pilot coat, with very wide lapels, made no slightest claim to elegance; and his stand-up collar, with rounding corners, was rough on the edges from frequent washing. His black cravat showed wear, and he wore no cuffs, as Hans Castorp saw at once from the lax way the sleeve hung round the wrist. But despite all that, he knew he had a gentleman before him: the stranger’s easy, even charming pose and cultured expression left no doubt of that. Yet by this mingling of shabbiness and grace, by the black eyes and softly waving moustaches, Hans Castorp was irresistibly reminded of certain foreign musicians who used to come to Hamburg at Christmas to play in the streets before people’s doors. He could see them rolling up their velvet eyes and holding out their soft hats for the coins tossed from the windows. “A hand-organ man,” he thought. Thus he was not surprised at the name he heard, as Joachim rose from the bench and in some embarrassment presented him: “My cousin Castorp, Herr Settembrini.” + 

Hans Castorp had got up at the same time, the traces of his burst of hilarity still on his face. But the Italian courteously bade them both not to disturb themselves, and made them sit down again, while he maintained his easy pose before them. He smiled standing there and looking at the cousins, in particular at Hans Castorp; a smile that was a fine, almost mocking, deepening and crisping of one corner of the mouth, just at the point where the full moustache made its beautiful upward curve. It had upon the cousins a singular effect: it somehow constrained them to mental alertness and clarity; it sobered the reeling Hans Castorp in a twinkling, and made him ashamed. + 

Settembrini said: “You are in good spirits⁠—and with reason too, with excellent reason. What a splendid morning! A blue sky, a smiling sun⁠—” with an easy, adequate motion of the arm he raised a small, yellowish-skinned hand to the heavens, and sent a lively glance upward after it⁠—“one could almost forget where one is.” + 

He spoke without accent, only the precise enunciation betrayed the foreigner. His lips seemed to take a certain pleasure in forming the words. It was most agreeable to hear him. + 

“You had a pleasant journey hither, I hope?” he turned to Hans Castorp. “And do you already know your fate⁠—I mean has the mournful ceremony of the first examination taken place?” Here, if he had really been expecting a reply he should have paused; he had put his question, and Hans Castorp prepared to answer. But he went on: “Did you get off easily? One might put”⁠—here he paused a second, and the crisping at the corner of his mouth grew crisper⁠—“more than one interpretation upon your laughter. How many months have our Minos and Rhadamanthus knocked you down for?” The slang phrase sounded droll on his lips. “Shall I guess? Six? Nine? You know we are free with the time up here⁠—” + 

Hans Castorp laughed, astonished, at the same time racking his brains to remember who Minos and Rhadamanthus were. He answered: “Not at all⁠—no, really, you are under a misapprehension, Herr Septem⁠—” + 

“Settembrini,” corrected the Italian, clearly and with emphasis, making as he spoke a mocking bow. + 

“Herr Settembrini⁠—I beg your pardon. No, you are mistaken. Really I am not ill. I have only come on a visit to my cousin Ziemssen for a few weeks, and shall take advantage of the opportunity to get a good rest⁠—” + 

“Zounds! You don’t say? Then you are not one of us? You are well, you are but a guest here, like Odysseus in the kingdom of the shades? You are bold indeed, thus to descend into these depths peopled by the vacant and idle dead⁠—” + 

“Descend, Herr Settembrini? I protest. Here I have climbed up some five thousand feet to get here⁠—” + 

“That was only seeming. Upon my honour, it was an illusion,” the Italian said, with a decisive-wave of the hand. “We are sunk enough here, aren’t we, Lieutenant?” he said to Joachim, who, no little gratified at this method of address, thought to hide his satisfaction, and answered reflectively: + 

“I suppose we do get rather one-sided. But we can pull ourselves together, afterwards, if we try.” + 

“At least, you can, I’m sure⁠—you are an upright man,” Settembrini said. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, repeating the word three times, with a sharp s, turning to Hans Castorp again as he spoke, and then, in the same measured way, clucking three times with his tongue against his palate. “I see, I see, I see,” he said again, giving the s the same sharp sound as before. He looked the newcomer so steadfastly in the face that his eyes grew fixed in a stare; then, becoming lively again, he went on: “So you come up quite of your own free will to us sunken ones, and mean to bestow upon us the pleasure of your company for some little while? That is delightful. And what term had you thought of putting to your stay? I don’t mean precisely. I am merely interested to know what the length of a man’s sojourn would be when it is himself and not Rhadamanthus who prescribes the limit.” + 

“Three weeks,” Hans Castorp said, rather pridefully, as he saw himself the object of envy. + 

“O dio! Three weeks! Do you hear, Lieutenant? Does it not sound to you impertinent to hear a person say: ‘I am stopping for three weeks and then I am going away again’? We up here are not acquainted with such a unit of time as the week⁠—if I may be permitted to instruct you, my dear sir. Our smallest unit is the month. We reckon in the grand style⁠—that is a privilege we shadows have. We possess other such; they are all of the same quality. May I ask what profession you practise down below? Or, more probably, for what profession are you preparing yourself? You see we set no bounds to our thirst for information⁠—curiosity is another of the prescriptive rights of shadows.” + 

“Pray don’t mention it,” said Hans Castorp. And told him. + 

“A shipbuilder! Magnificent!” cried Settembrini. “I assure you, I find that magnificent⁠—though my own talents lie in quite another direction.” + 

“Herr Settembrini is a literary man,” Joachim explained, rather self-consciously. “He wrote the obituary notices of Carducci for the German papers⁠—Carducci, you know.” He got more self-conscious still, for his cousin looked at him in amazement, as though to say: “Carducci? What do you know about him? Not any more than I do, I’ll wager.” + 

“Yes,” the Italian said, nodding. “I had the honour of telling your countrymen the story of our great poet and freethinker, when his life had drawn to a close. I knew him, I can count myself among his pupils. I sat at his feet in Bologna. I may thank him for what culture I can call my own⁠—and for what joyousness of life as well. But we were speaking of you. A shipbuilder! Do you know you have sensibly risen in my estimation? You represent now, in my eyes, the world of labour and practical genius.” + 

“Herr Settembrini, I am only a student as yet, I am just beginning.” + 

“Certainly. It is the beginning that is hard. But all work is hard, isn’t it, that deserves the name?” + 

“That’s true enough, God knows⁠—or the Devil does,” Hans Castorp said, and the words came from his heart. + 

Settembrini’s eyebrows went up. + 

“Oh,” he said, “so you call on the Devil to witness that sentiment⁠—the Devil incarnate, Satan himself? Did you know that my great master wrote a hymn to him?” + 

“I beg your pardon,” Hans Castorp said, “a hymn to the Devil?” + 

“The very Devil himself, and no other. It is sometimes sung, in my native land, on festal occasions. ‘O salute, O Satana, O ribellione, O forza vindice della ragione!⁠ ⁠…’ It is a magnificent song. But it was hardly Carducci’s Devil you had in mind when you spoke; for he is on the very best of terms with hard work; whereas yours, who is afraid of work and hates it like poison, is probably the same of whom we are told that we may not hold out even the little finger to him.” + 

All this was making the very oddest impression on our good Hans Castorp. He knew no Italian, and the rest of it sounded no less uncomfortable, and reminded him of Sunday sermons, though delivered quite casually, in a light, even jesting tone. He looked at his cousin, who kept his eyes cast down; then he said: “You take my words far too literally, Herr Settembrini. When I spoke of the Devil, it was just a manner of speaking, I assure you.” + 

“Somebody must have some esprit,” Settembrini said, looking straight ahead, with a melancholy air. Then recovering himself, he skillfully got back to their former subject, and went on blithely: “At all events, I am probably right in concluding from your words that the calling you have embraced is as strenuous as it is honourable. As for myself, I am a humanist, a homo humanus. I have no mechanical ingenuity, however sincere my respect for it. But I can well understand that the theory of your craft requires a clear and keen mind, and its practice not less than the entire man. Am I right?” + 

“You certainly are, I can go all the way with you there,” Hans Castorp answered. Unconsciously he made an effort to reply with eloquence. “The demands made today on a man in my profession are simply enormous. It is better not to have too clear an idea of their magnitude, it might take away one’s courage: no, it’s no joke. And if one isn’t the strongest in the world⁠—It is true that I am here only on a visit; but I am not very robust, and I cannot with truth assert that my work agrees with me so wonderfully well. It would be a great deal truer to say that it rather takes it out of me. I only feel really fit when I am doing nothing at all.” + 

“As now, for example?” + 

“Now? Oh, now I am so new up here, I am still rather bewildered⁠—you can imagine.” + 

“Ah⁠—bewildered.” + 

“Yes, and I did not sleep so very well, and the early breakfast was really too solid.⁠—I am accustomed to a fair breakfast, but this was a little too rich for my blood, as the saying goes. In short, I feel a sense of oppression⁠—and for some reason or other, my cigar this morning hasn’t the right taste, something that as good as never happens to me, or only when I am seriously upset⁠—and today it is like leather. I had to throw it away, there was no use forcing it. Are you a smoker, may I ask? No? Then you cannot imagine the annoyance and disappointment it is for anyone like me, who have smoked from my youth up, and taken such pleasure in it.” + 

“I am without experience in the field,” Settembrini answered, “but I find that my lack of it is in no poor company. So many fine, self-denying spirits have refrained. Carducci had no use for the practice. But you will find our Rhadamanthus a kindred spirit. He is a devotee of your vice.” + 

“Vice, Herr Settembrini?” + 

“Why not? One must call things by their right names; life is enriched and ennobled thereby. I too have my vices.” + 

“So Hofrat Behrens is a connoisseur? A charming man.” + 

“You find him so? Then you have already made his acquaintance?” + 

“Yes, just now, as we came out. It was almost like a professional visit⁠—but gratis, you know⁠—sine pecunia. He saw at once that I am anaemic. He advised me to follow my cousin’s regimen entirely: to lie out on the balcony a good deal⁠—he even said I should take my temperature.” + 

“Did he indeed?” Settembrini cried out. “Capital!” He laughed and threw back his head. “How does it go, that opera of yours? ‘A fowler bold in me you see, forever laughing merrily!’ Ah, that is most amusing! And you will follow his advice? Of course, why shouldn’t you? He’s a devil of a fellow, our Rhadamanthus! ‘Forever laughing’⁠—even if it is rather forced at times. He is inclined to melancholia, you know. His vice doesn’t agree with him⁠—of course, else it would be no vice. Smoking gives him fits of depression; that is why our respected Frau Directress has taken charge of his supplies, and only deals him out daily rations. It even happens sometimes that he yields to the temptation to steal it, and then he gets an attack of melancholia. A troubled spirit, in short. Do you know your Directress already, too? No? You have made a mistake. You must remedy it at the earliest opportunity. My dear sir, she comes of the noble race of von Mylendonk. And she is distinguished from the Medici Venus by the fact that where the goddess has a bosom, she has a cross.” + 

“Ah, ha ha!⁠—capital!” Hans Castorp laughed. + 

“Her Christian name is Adriatica.” + 

“Adriatica!” shouted Hans Castorp. “Priceless! Adriatica von Mylendonk! Isn’t that splendid! Sounds as though she had been dead a very long time. It is positively medieval.” + 

“My dear sir,” Settembrini answered him, “there is a good deal up here that is positively medieval, as you express it. Personally, I am convinced that Rhadamanthus was actuated simply and solely by artistic feeling when he made this fossil head overseer of his Chamber of Horrors. You know he is an artist, by the by. He paints in oils. Why not? There’s no law against it⁠—anybody can paint that likes. Frau Adriatica tells all who will listen to her, not counting those who won’t, that a Mylendonk was abbess of a cloister at Bonn on the Rhine, in the thirteenth century. It can’t have been long after that she herself saw the light of day.” + 

“Ha ha! Why, Herr Settembrini, I find you are a mocker!” + 

“A mocker? You mean I am malicious? Well, yes, perhaps I am a little,” said Settembrini. “My great complaint is that it is my fate to spend my malice upon such insignificant objects. I hope, Engineer, you have nothing against malice? In my eyes, it is reason’s keenest dart against the powers of darkness and ugliness. Malice, my dear sir, is the animating spirit of criticism; and criticism is the beginning of progress and enlightenment.” And he began to talk about Petrarch, whom he called the father of the modern spirit. + 

“I think,” Joachim said thoughtfully, “that we ought to be going to lie down.” + 

The man of letters had been speaking to an accompaniment of graceful gestures, one of which he now rounded off in Joachim’s direction and said: “Our lieutenant presses on to the service. Let us go together, our way is the same: the ‘path on the right that shall lead to the halls of the mightiest Dis’⁠—ah, Virgil, Virgil! He is unsurpassable. I am a believer in progress, certainly, gentlemen; but Virgil⁠—he has a command of epithet no modern can approach.” And on their homeward path he recited Latin verse with an Italian pronunciation; interrupting himself, however, as he saw coming towards them a young girl⁠—a girl of the village, as it seemed, and by no means remarkable for her looks⁠—whom he laid himself out to smile at and ogle most killingly: “O la, la, sweet, sweet, sweet!” he chirruped. “Pretty, pretty, pretty! ‘Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,’ ” he quoted as they passed, and kissed his hand at the poor girl’s embarrassed back. + 

“What a windbag it is,” Hans Castorp thought. He remained of that opinion still, after the Italian had recovered from his attack of gallantry and begun to scoff again. His animadversions were chiefly directed upon Herr Hofrat Behrens: he jeered at the size of his feet, and at the title he had received from a certain prince who suffered from tuberculosis of the brain. Of the scandalous courses of that royal personage the whole neighbourhood still talked; but Rhadamanthus had shut his eye⁠—both eyes, in fact⁠—and behaved every inch a Hofrat. Did the gentlemen know that he⁠—the Hofrat⁠—had invented the summer season? He it was, and no other. One must give the devil his due. There had been a time when only the faithfullest of the faithful had spent the summer in the high valley. Then our humourist, with his unerring eye, had perceived that this neglect was simply the result of unfortunate prejudice. He got up the idea that, so far at least as his own sanatorium was concerned, the summer cure was not only not less to be recommended than the winter one, it was, on the contrary, of great value, really quite indispensable. And he knew how to get this theory put about, to have it come to people’s ears; he wrote articles on the subject and launched them in the press⁠—since when the summer season had been as flourishing as the winter one. + 

“Genius!” said Settembrini. “In-tu-ition!” He went on to criticize the proprietors of all the other sanatoria in the place, praising their acquisitive talents with mordant sarcasm. There was Professor Kafka. Every year, at the critical moment, when the snow began to melt, and several patients were asking leave to depart, he would suddenly find himself obliged to be away for a week, and promise to take up all requests on his return. Then he would stop away for six weeks, while the poor wretches waited for him, and while, incidentally, their bills continued to mount. Kafka was once sent for to go to Fiume for a consultation, but he would not go until he was guaranteed five thousand good Swiss francs; and thus two weeks were lost in pourparlers. Then he went; but the day after the arrival of the great man, the patient died. Dr. Salzmann asserted that Kafka did not keep his hypodermic syringes clean, and his patients got infected one from the other. He also said he wore rubber soles, that his dead might not hear him. On the other hand, Kafka told it about that Dr. Salzmann’s patients were encouraged to drink so much of the fruit of the vine⁠—for the benefit of Dr. Salzmann’s pocketbook⁠—that they died off like flies, not of phthisis but cirrhosis of the liver. + 

Thus he went on, Hans Castorp laughing with good-natured enjoyment at this glib and prolific stream of slander. It was, indeed, great fun to listen to, so eloquent was it, so precisely rendered, so free from every trace of dialect. The words came, round, clear-cut, and as though newly minted, from his mobile lips, he tasted his own well-turned, dexterous, biting phrases with obvious and contagious relish, and seemed to be far too clearheaded and self-possessed ever to misspeak. + 

“You have such an amusing way of talking, Herr Settembrini,” Hans Castorp said. “So lively, so⁠—I don’t quite know how to characterize it.” + 

“Plastic?” responded the Italian, and fanned himself with his handkerchief, though it was far from warm. “That is probably the word you seek. You mean I have a plastic way of speaking. But look!” he cried, “what do my eyes behold? The judges of our infernal regions! What a sight!” + 

The walkers had already put behind them the turn in the path. Whether thanks to Settembrini’s conversation, the fact that they were walking downhill, or merely that they were much nearer the sanatorium than Hans Castorp had thought⁠—for a path is always longer the first time we traverse it⁠—at all events, the return had been accomplished in a surprisingly short time. Settembrini was right, it was the two physicians who were walking along the free space at the back of the building; the Hofrat ahead, in his white smock, his neck stuck out and his hands moving like oars; on his heels the black-shirted Dr. Krokowski, who looked the more self-conscious that medical etiquette constrained him to walk behind his chief when they made their rounds together. + 

“Ah, Krokowski,” Settembrini cried. “There he goes⁠—he who knows all the secrets in the bosoms of our ladies⁠—pray observe the delicate symbolism of his attire: he wears black to indicate that his proper field of study is the night. The man has but one idea in his head, and that a smutty one. How does it happen, Engineer, that we have not spoken of him until now? You have made his acquaintance?” + 

Hans Castorp answered in the affirmative. + 

“Well? I am beginning to suspect that you like him, too.” + 

“I don’t know, really, Herr Settembrini. I’ve seen him only casually. And I am not very quick in my judgments. I am inclined to look at people and say: ‘So that’s you, is it? Very good.’ ” + 

“That is apathetic of you. You should judge⁠—to that end you have been given your eyes and your understanding. You felt that I spoke maliciously, just now. If I did, perhaps it was not without intent to teach. We humanists have all of us a pedagogic itch. Humanism and schoolmasters⁠—there is a historical connection between them, and it rests upon psychological fact: the office of schoolmaster should not⁠—cannot⁠—be taken from the humanist, for the tradition of the beauty and dignity of man rests in his hands. The priest, who in troubled and inhuman times arrogated to himself the office of guide to youth, has been dismissed; since when, my dear sirs, no special type of teacher has arisen. The humanistic grammar-school⁠—you may call me reactionary, Engineer, but in abstracto, generally speaking, you understand, I remain an adherent⁠—” + 

He continued in the lift to expatiate upon this theme, and left off only when the cousins got out as the second storey was reached. He himself went up to the third, where he had, Joachim said, a little back room. + 

“He hasn’t much money, I suppose,” Hans Castorp said, entering Joachim’s room, which looked precisely like his own. + 

“No, I suppose not,” Joachim answered, “or only so much as just makes his stay possible. His father was a literary man too, you know, and, I believe, his grandfather as well.” + 

“Yes, of course,” Hans Castorp said. “Is he seriously ill?” + 

“Not dangerously, so far as I know, but obstinate, keeps coming back. He has had it for years, and goes away in between, but soon has to return again.” + 

“Poor chap! So frightfully keen on work as he seems to be! Enormously chatty, goes from one thing to another so easily. Rather objectionable, though, it seemed to me, with that girl. I was quite put off, for the moment. But when he talked about human dignity, afterwards, I thought it was great⁠—sounded like an address. Do you see much of him?” + 

Mental Gymnastic + 

Joachim’s reply came impeded and incoherent. He had taken a small thermometer from a red leather, velvet-lined case on his table, and put the mercury-filled end under his tongue on the left side, so that the glass instrument stuck slantingly upwards out of his mouth. Then he changed into indoor clothes, put on shoes and a braided jacket, took a printed form and pencil from his table, also a book, a Russian grammar⁠—for he was studying Russian with the idea that it would be of advantage to him in the service⁠—and, thus equipped, took his place in the reclining-chair on his balcony, throwing his camel’s-hair rug lightly across his feet. + 

It was scarcely needed. During the last quarter-hour the layer of cloud had grown steadily thinner, and now the sun broke through in summerlike warmth, so dazzlingly that Joachim protected his head with a white linen shade which was fastened to the arm of his chair, and furnished with a device by means of which it could be adjusted to the position of the sun. Hans Castorp praised this contrivance. He wished to await the result of Joachim’s measurement, and meanwhile looked about to see how everything was done: observed the fur-lined sleeping-sack that stood against the wall in a corner of the loggia, for Joachim to use on cold days; and gazed down into the garden, with his elbows on the balustrade. The general rest-hall was populated by reclining patients, reading, writing, or conversing. He could see only a part of the interior, some four or five chairs. + 

“How long does that go on?” he asked, turning round. + 

Joachim raised seven fingers. + 

“Seven minutes! But they must be up!” + 

Joachim shook his head. A little later he took the thermometer out of his mouth, looked at it, and said: “Yes, when you watch it, the time, it goes very slowly. I quite like the measuring, four times a day; for then you know what a minute⁠—or seven of them actually amounts to, up here in this place, where the seven days of the week whisk by the way they do!” + 

“You say ‘actually,’ ” Hans Castorp answered. He sat with one leg flung over the balustrade, and his eyes looked bloodshot. “But after all, time isn’t ‘actual.’ When it seems long to you, then it is long; when it seems short, why, then it is short. But how long, or how short, it actually is, that nobody knows.” He was unaccustomed to philosophize, yet somehow felt an impulse to do so. + 

Joachim gainsaid him. “How so?⁠—we do measure it. We have watches and calendars for the purpose; and when a month is up, why, then up it is, for you, and for me, and for all of us.” + 

“Wait,” said Hans Castorp. He held up his forefinger, close to his tired eyes. “A minute, then, is as long as it seems to you when you measure yourself?” + 

“A minute is as long⁠—it lasts as long⁠—as it takes the second hand of my watch to complete a circuit.” + 

“But it takes such a varied length of time⁠—to our senses! And as a matter of fact⁠—I say taking it just as a matter of fact,” he repeated, pressing his forefinger so hard against his nose that he bent the end of it quite round, “it is motion, isn’t it, motion in space? Wait a minute! That means that we measure time by space. But that is no better than measuring space by time, a thing only very unscientific people do. From Hamburg to Davos is twenty hours⁠—that is, by train. But on foot how long is it? And in the mind, how long? Not a second!” + 

“I say,” Joachim said, “what’s the matter with you? Seems to me it goes to your head to be up here with us!” + 

“Keep quiet! I’m very clearheaded today. Well, then, what is time?” asked Hans Castorp, and bent the tip of his nose so far round that it became white and bloodless. “Can you answer me that? Space we perceive with our organs, with our senses of sight and touch. Good. But which is our organ of time⁠—tell me that if you can. You see, that’s where you stick. But how can we possibly measure anything about which we actually know nothing, not even a single one of its properties? We say of time that it passes. Very good, let it pass. But to be able to measure it⁠—wait a minute: to be susceptible of being measured, time must flow evenly, but who ever said it did that? As far as our consciousness is concerned it doesn’t, we only assume that it does, for the sake of convenience; and our units of measurement are purely arbitrary, sheer conventions⁠—” + 

“Good,” Joachim said. “Then perhaps it is pure convention that I have five points too much here on my thermometer. But on account of those lines I have to drool about here instead of joining up, which is a disgusting fact.” + 

“Have you 99.3°?” + 

“It’s going down already,” and Joachim made the entry on his chart. “Last night it was almost 100°⁠—that was your arrival. A visit always makes it go up. But it is a good thing, notwithstanding.” + 

“I’ll go now,” said Hans Castorp. “I’ve still a great many ideas in my head about the time⁠—a whole complex, if I may say so. But I won’t excite you with them now, you’ve too many degrees as it is. I’ll keep them all and return to them later, perhaps after breakfast. You will call me when it is time, I suppose. I’ll go now and lie down; it won’t hurt me, thank goodness.” With which he passed round the glass partition into his loggia, where stood his own reclining-chair and side-table. He fetched Ocean Steamships and his beautiful, soft, dark-red and green plaid from within the room, which had already been put into perfect order, and sat himself down. + 

Soon he too had to put up the little sunshade; the heat became unbearable as he lay. But he was uncommonly comfortable, he decided, with distinct satisfaction. He did not recall in all his experience so acceptable an easy-chair. The frame⁠—a little old-fashioned, perhaps, a mere matter of taste, for the chair was obviously new⁠—was of polished red-brown wood, and the mattress was covered in a soft cotton material; or rather, it was not a mattress, but three thick cushions, extending from the foot to the very top of the chair-back. There was a head-roll besides, neither too hard nor too yielding, with an embroidered linen cover, fastened on by a cord to the chair, and wondrously agreeable to the neck. Hans Castorp supported his elbow on the broad, smooth surface of the chair-arm, blinked, and reposed himself. The landscape, rather severe and sparse, though brightly sunny, looked like a framed painting as viewed through the arch of the loggia. Hans Castorp gazed thoughtfully at it. Suddenly he thought of something, and said aloud in the stillness: “That was a dwarf, wasn’t it, that waited on us at breakfast?” + 

“Sh-h,” went Joachim. “Don’t speak loud. Yes, a dwarf. Why?” + 

“Nothing. We hadn’t mentioned it.” + 

He mused on. It had been ten o’clock when he lay down. An hour passed. It was an ordinary hour, not long, not short. At its close a bell sounded through the house and garden, first afar, then near, then from afar again. + 

“Breakfast,” Joachim said and could be heard getting up. + 

Hans Castorp too finished with his cure for the time and went into his room to put himself to rights a little. The cousins met in the corridor and descended the stair. + 

Hans Castorp said: “Well, the lying-down is great! What sort of chairs are they? If they are to be had here, I’ll buy one and take it to Hamburg with me; they are heavenly to lie in. Or do you think Behrens had them made to his design?” + 

Joachim did not know. They entered the dining-room, where the meal was again in full swing. + 

At every place stood a large glass, probably a half litre of milk; the room shimmered white with it. + 

“No,” Hans Castorp said, when he was once more in his seat between the seamstress and the Englishwoman, and had docilely unfolded his serviette, though still heavy with the earlier meal; “no, God help me, milk I never could abide, and least of all now! Is there perhaps some porter?” He applied himself to the dwarf and put his question with the gentlest courtesy, but alas, there was none. She promised to bring Kulmbacher beer, and did so. It was thick, dark, and foaming brownly; it made a capital substitute for the porter. Hans Castorp drank it thirstily from a half-litre glass, and ate some cold meat and toast. Again there was oatmeal porridge and much butter and fruit. He let his eyes dwell upon them, incapable of more. And he looked at the guests as well; the groups began to break up for him, and individuals to stand out. + 

His own table was full, except the place at the top, which, he learned, was “the doctor’s place.” For the doctors, when their work allowed, ate at the common table, sitting at each of the seven in turn; at each one a place was kept free. But just now neither was present; they were operating, it was said. The young man with the moustaches came in again, sank his chin once for all on his breast, and sat down, with his self-absorbed, careworn mien. The lean, light blonde was in her seat, and spooned up yogurt as though it formed her sole article of diet. Next her appeared a lively little old dame, who addressed the silent young man in Russian; he regarded her uneasily, and answered only by nodding his head, looking as though he had a bad taste in his mouth. Opposite him, on the other side of the elderly lady, there was another young girl⁠—pretty, with a blooming complexion and full bosom, chestnut hair that waved agreeably, round, brown, childlike eyes, and a little ruby on her lovely hand. She laughed often, and spoke Russian. Hans Castorp learned that her name was Marusja. He noticed further that when she laughed and talked, Joachim sat with eyes cast sternly down upon his plate. + 

Settembrini appeared through the side door, and, curling his moustaches, strode to his place at the end of the table diagonally in front of that where Hans Castorp sat. His tablemates burst out in peals of laughter as he sat down; he had probably said something cutting. Hans Castorp recognized the members of the Half-Lung Club. Hermine Kleefeld, heavy-eyed, slid into her place at the table in front of one of the verandah doors, speaking as she did so to the thick-lipped youth who had worn his coat in the unseemly fashion that had struck Hans Castorp. The ivory-coloured Levi and the fat, freckled Iltis sat side by side at a table at right angles to Hans Castorp⁠—he did not know any of their tablemates. + 

“There are your neighbours,” Joachim said in a low voice to his cousin, bending forward as he spoke. The pair passed close beside Hans Castorp to the last table on the right, the “bad” Russian table, apparently, where there already sat a whole family, one of whom, a very ugly boy, was gobbling great quantities of porridge. The man was of slight proportions, with a grey, hollow-cheeked face. He wore a brown leather jacket; on his feet he had clumsy felt boots with buckled clasps. His wife, likewise small and slender, walked with tripping steps in her tiny, high-heeled Russia leather boots, the feathers swaying on her hat. Around her neck she wore a soiled feather boa. Hans Castorp looked at them with a ruthless stare, quite foreign to his usual manner⁠—he himself was aware of its brutality, yet at the same time conscious of relishing that very quality. His eyes felt both staring and heavy. At that moment the glass door on the left slammed shut, with a rattle and ringing of glass; he did not start as he had on the first occasion, but only made a grimace of lazy disgust; when he wished to turn his head, he found the effort too much for him⁠—it was really not worth while. And thus, for the second time, he was unable to fix upon the person who was guilty of behaving in that reckless way about a door. + 

The truth was that the breakfast beer, as a rule only mildly obfuscating to the young man’s sense, had this time completely stupefied and befuddled him. He felt as though he had received a blow on the head. His eyelids were heavy as lead; his tongue would not shape his simple thoughts when out of politeness he tried to talk to the Englishwoman. Even to alter the direction of his gaze he was obliged to conquer a great disinclination; and, added to all this, the hateful burning in his face had reached the same height as yesterday, his cheeks felt puffy with heat, he breathed with difficulty; his heart pounded dully, like a hammer muffled in cloth. If all these sensations caused him no high degree of suffering, that was only because his head felt as though he had inhaled a few whiffs of chloroform. He saw as in a dream that Dr. Krokowski appeared at breakfast and took the place opposite to his; the doctor, however, repeatedly looked him sharply in the eye, while he conversed in Russian with the ladies on his right. The young girls⁠—the blooming Marusja and the lean consumer of yogurt⁠—cast down their eyes modestly as the doctor spoke. Hans Castorp did not, of course, bear himself otherwise than with dignity. In silence, since his tongue refused its office, but managing his knife and fork with particular propriety. When his cousin nodded to him and got up, he rose too, bowed blindly to the rest of the table, and with cautious steps followed Joachim out. + 

“When do we lie down again?” he asked, as they left the house. “It’s the best thing up here, so far as I can see. I wish I were back again in my comfortable chair. Do we take a long walk?” + 

A Word Too Much + 

“No,” answered Joachim. “I am not allowed to go far. At this period I always go down below, through the village as far as the Platz if I have time. There are shops and people, and one can buy what one needs. Don’t worry, we rest for an hour again before dinner, and then after it until four o’clock.” + 

They went down the drive in the sunshine, crossed the watercourse and the narrow track, having before their eyes the mountain heights of the western side of the valley: the Little Schiahorn, the Green Tower, and the Dorfberg⁠—Joachim mentioned their names. The little walled cemetery of Davos-Dorf lay up there, at some height; Joachim pointed it out with his stick. They reached the high road that led along the terraced slope a storey higher than the valley floor. + 

It was rather a misnomer to speak of the village, since scarcely anything but the word remained. The resort had swallowed it up, extending further and further toward the entrance of the valley, until that part of the settlement which was called the “Dorf” passed imperceptibly into the “Platz.” Hotels and pensions, amply equipped with covered verandahs, balconies, and reclining-halls, lay on both sides of their way, also private houses with rooms to let. Here and there were new buildings, but also open spaces, which preserved a view toward the valley meadows. + 

Hans Castorp, craving his familiar and wonted indulgence, had once more lighted a cigar; and, thanks probably to the beer that had gone before, he succeeded now and then in getting a whiff of the longed-for aroma⁠—to his inexpressible satisfaction. But only now and then, but only faintly; the anxious receptivity of his attitude was a strain on the nerves, and the hateful leathery taste distinctly prevailed. Unable to reconcile himself to his impotence, he struggled awhile to regain the enjoyment which either escaped him wholly, or else mocked him by its brief presence; finally, worn out and disgusted, he flung the cigar away. Despite his benumbed condition he felt it incumbent upon him to be polite, to make conversation, and to this end he sought to recall those brilliant ideas he had previously had, on the subject of time. Alas, they had fled, the whole “complex” of them, and left not a trace behind: on the subject of time not one single idea, however insignificant, found lodgment in his head. He began, therefore, to talk of ordinary matters, of the concerns of the body⁠—what he said sounded odd enough in his mouth. + 

“When do you measure again?” he asked. “After eating? Yes, that’s a good time. When the organism is in full activity, it must show itself. Behrens must have been joking when he told me to take my temperature⁠—Settembrini laughed like anything at the idea; there’s really no sense in it, I haven’t even a thermometer.” + 

“Well,” Joachim said, “that is the least of your difficulties. You can get one anywhere⁠—they sell them in almost every shop.” + 

“Why should I? No, the lying-down is very much the thing. I’ll gladly do it; but measuring would be rather too much for a guest; I’ll leave that to the rest of you. If I only knew,” Hans Castorp went on, and laid his hands like a lover on his heart, “if I only knew why I have palpitations the whole time⁠—it is very disquieting; I keep thinking about it. For, you see, a person ordinarily has palpitation of the heart when he is frightened, or when he is looking forward to some great joy. But when the heart palpitates all by itself, without any reason, senselessly, of its own accord, so to speak, I feel that’s uncanny, you understand, as if the body was going its own gait without any reference to the soul, like a dead body, only it is not really dead⁠—there isn’t any such thing, of course⁠—but leading a very active existence all on its own account, growing hair and nails and doing a lively business in the physical and chemical line, so I’ve been told⁠—” + 

“What kind of talk is that?” Joachim said, with serious reproach. “ ‘Doing a lively business’!” And perhaps he recalled the reproaches he had called down on his own head earlier in the day. + 

“It’s a fact⁠—it is very lively! Why do you object to that?” Hans Castorp asked. “But I only happened to mention it. I only meant to say that it is disturbing and unpleasant to have the body act as though it had no connection with the soul, and put on such airs⁠—by which I mean these senseless palpitations. You keep trying to find an explanation for them, an emotion to account for them, a feeling of joy or pain, which would, so to speak, justify them. At least, it is that way with me⁠—but I can only speak for myself.” + 

“Yes, yes,” Joachim said, sighing. “It is the same thing, I suppose, as when you have fever⁠—there are pretty lively goings-on in the system then too, to talk the way you do; it may easily be that one involuntarily tries to find an emotion which would explain, or even halfway explain the goings-on. But we are talking such unpleasant stuff,” he said, his voice trembling a little, and he broke off; whereupon Hans Castorp shrugged his shoulders⁠—with the very gesture, indeed, which had, the evening before, displeased him in his cousin. + 

They walked awhile in silence, until Joachim asked: “Well, how do you like the people up here? I mean the ones at our table.” + 

Hans Castorp put on a judicial air. “Dear me,” he said, “I don’t find them so very interesting. Some of the people at the other tables look more so, but that may be only seeming. Frau Stöhr ought to have her hair shampooed, it is so greasy. And that Mazurka⁠—or whatever her name is⁠—seemed rather silly to me. She keeps giggling and stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth.” + 

Joachim laughed loudly at the twist his cousin had given the name. + 

“ ‘Mazurka’ is capital,” he said. “Her name is Marusja, with your kind permission⁠—it is the same as Marie. Yes, she really is too undisciplined, and after all, she has every reason to be serious,” he said, “for her case is by no means light.” + 

“Who would have thought it?” said Hans Castorp. “She looks so very fit. Chest trouble is the last thing one would accuse her of.” He tried to catch his cousin’s eye, and saw that Joachim’s sunburnt face had gone all spotted, as a tanned complexion will when the blood leaves it with suddenness; his mouth too was pitifully drawn, and wore an expression that sent an indefinable chill of fear over Hans Castorp and made him hasten to change the subject. He hurriedly inquired about others of their tablemates and tried to forget Marusja and the look on Joachim’s face⁠—an effort in which he presently succeeded. + 

The Englishwoman with the rose tea was Miss Robinson. The seamstress was not a seamstress but a schoolmistress at a lycée in Königsberg⁠—which accounted for the precision of her speech. Her name was Fräulein Engelhart. As for the name of the lively little old lady, Joachim, as long as he had been up here, did not know it. All he knew was that she was great-aunt to the young lady who ate yogurt, and lived with her permanently in the sanatorium. The worst case at their table was Dr. Blumenkohl, Leo Blumenkohl, from Odessa, the young man with the moustaches and the absorbed and careworn air. He had been here years. + 

They were now walking on the city pavement, the main street, obviously, of an international centre. They met the guests of the cure, strolling about, young people for the most part: gallants in “sporting,” without their hats; white-skirted ladies, also hatless. One heard Russian and English. Shops with gay show-windows were on either side of the road, and Hans Castorp, his curiosity struggling with intense weariness, forced himself to look into them, and stood a long time before a shop that purveyed fashionable male wear, to decide whether its display was really up to the mark. + 

They reached a rotunda with covered galleries, where a band was giving a concert. This was the Kurhaus. Tennis was being played on several courts by long-legged, clean-shaven youths in accurately pressed flannels and rubber-soled shoes, their arms bared to the elbow, and sunburnt girls in white frocks, who ran and flung themselves high in the sunny air in their efforts to strike the white ball. The well-kept courts looked as though coated with flour. The cousins sat down on an empty bench to watch and criticize the game. + 

“You don’t play here?” Hans Castorp asked. + 

“I am not allowed,” Joachim answered. “We have to lie⁠—nothing but lie. Settembrini says we live horizontally⁠—he calls us ‘horizontallers’; that’s one of his rotten jokes. Those are healthy people, there⁠—or else they are breaking the rules. But they don’t play very seriously anyhow⁠—it’s more for the sake of the costume. As far as breaking the rules goes, there are more forbidden things besides tennis that get played here⁠—poker, and petits-chevaux, in this and that hotel. At our place there is a notice about it; it is supposed to be the most harmful thing one can do. Even so, there are people who slip out after the evening visit and come down here to gamble. That prince who gave Behrens his title always did it, they say.” + 

Hans Castorp barely attended. His mouth was open, for he could not have breathed through his nose without sniffing; he felt with dull discomfort that his heart was hammering out of time with the music; and with this combined sense of discord and disorder he was about to doze off when Joachim suggested that they go home. + 

They returned almost in silence. Hans Castorp stumbled once or twice on the level street and grinned ruefully as he shook his head. The lame man took them up in the lift to their own storey. They parted, with a brief “See you later” at the door of number thirty-four; Hans Castorp piloted himself through his room to the balcony, where he dropped just as he was upon his deck-chair and, without once shifting to a more comfortable posture, sank into a dull half-slumber, broken by the rapid beating of his unquiet heart. + 

Of Course, a Female! + 

How long it lasted he could not have told. When the moment arrived, the gong sounded. But it was not the gong for the meal, it was only the dressing-bell, as Hans Castorp knew, and so he still lay, until the metallic drone rose and died away a second time. When Joachim came to fetch him, Hans Castorp wanted to change, but this Joachim would not allow. He hated and despised unpunctuality. Would he be likely, he asked, to get on, and get strong enough for the service, if he was too feeble to observe the hours for meals? Wherein he was, of course, quite right, and Hans Castorp could only say that he was not ill at all, but only utterly and entirely sleepy. He confined himself to washing his hands; and then for the third time they went down together to the dining-hall. + 

The guests streamed in through both entrances, they even came through the open verandah door. Soon they all sat at their several tables as though they had never risen. Such at least was Hans Castorp’s impression⁠—a dreamy and irrational impression, of course, but one which his muddled brain could not for an instant get rid of, in which it even took a certain satisfaction, so that several times in the course of the meal he sought to call it up again and was always perfectly successful in reproducing the illusion. The gay old lady continued to talk in her semifluid tongue at the careworn Dr. Blumenkohl, diagonally opposite; her lean niece actually at last ate something else than yogurt; namely, the thick cream of barley soup, which was handed round in soup-plates by the waitresses. Of this she took a few spoonfuls and left the rest. Pretty Marusja giggled, then stuffed her dainty handkerchief in her mouth⁠—it gave out a scent of oranges. Miss Robinson read the same letters, in the same round script, which she had read at breakfast. Obviously she knew not a word of German, nor wished to do so. Joachim, preux chevalier, said something to her in English, which she answered in a monosyllable without ceasing to chew, and relapsed again into silence. Frau Stöhr, sitting there in her woollen blouse, gave the table to know she had been examined that forenoon; she went into particulars, affectedly drawing back her upper lip from the rodent-like teeth. There were rhonchi to be heard in the upper right side, and under the left shoulder-blade the breathing was still very limited; the “old man” said she would have to stop another five months. It sounded very common to hear her refer thus to Herr Hofrat Behrens. She displayed, moreover, a feeling of injury because the “old man” was not sitting at her table today, where he should by rights be sitting if he had taken them “à la tournée”⁠—by which she presumably meant in turn⁠—instead of going to the next table again. (There, in fact, he really was sitting, his great hands folded before his place.) But of course that was Frau Salomon’s table, the fat Frau Salomon from Amsterdam, who came décolletée to table even on weekdays, a sight which the “old man” liked to see, though for her part⁠—Frau Stöhr’s⁠—she never could understand why, since he could see all he wanted of Frau Salomon at every examination. She related, in an excited whisper, that last night, in the general rest-hall up under the roof, somebody had put out the light, for purposes which she designated as “transparent.” The “old man” had seen it, and stormed so you could hear it all over the place. He had not discovered the culprit, of course, but it didn’t take a university education to guess that it was Captain Miklosich from Bucharest, for whom, when in the society of ladies, it could never be dark enough: a man without any and all refinement⁠—though he did wear a corset⁠—and, by nature, simply a beast of prey⁠—a perfect beast of prey, repeated Frau Stöhr, in a stifled whisper, beads of perspiration on her brow and upper lip. The relations between him and Frau Consul-General Wurmbrandt from Vienna were known throughout Dorf and Platz⁠—it was idle any longer to speak of them as clandestine. Not merely did the captain go into the Frau Consul-General’s bedroom while she was still in bed, and remain there throughout her toilet; last Thursday he had not left the Wurmbrandt’s room until four in the morning; that they knew from the nurse who was taking care of young Franz in number nineteen⁠—his pneumothorax operation had gone wrong. She had, in her embarrassment, mistaken her own door, and burst suddenly into the room of Herr Paravant, a Dortmund lawyer. Lastly Frau Stöhr held forth for some time on the merits of a “cosmic” establishment down in the village, where she bought her mouthwash. Joachim gazed stonily downwards at his plate. + 

The meal was as faultlessly prepared as it was abundant. Counting the hearty soup, it consisted of no less than six courses. After the fish followed an excellent meat dish, with garnishings, then a separate vegetable course, then roast fowl, a pudding, not inferior to yesterday evening’s, and lastly cheese and fruit. Each dish was handed twice and not in vain. At all seven tables they filled their plates and ate: they ate like wolves; they displayed a voracity which would have been a pleasure to see, had there not been something else about it, an effect almost uncanny, not to say repulsive. It was not only the lighthearted who thus laced into the food⁠—those who chattered as they ate and threw pellets of bread at each other. No, the same appetite was evinced by the silent, gloomy ones as well, those who in the pauses between courses leaned their heads on their hands and stared before them. A half-grown youth at the next table on the left, by his years a schoolboy, with his wrists coming out of his jacket sleeves, and thick, round eyeglasses, cut all the heaped-up food on his plate into a sort of mash, then bent over and gulped it down; he reached with his serviette behind his glasses now and then and dried his eyes⁠—whether it was sweat or tears he dried one could not tell. + 

There were two incidents during the course of the meal of which Hans Castorp took note, so far as his condition permitted. One was the banging of the glass door, which occurred while they were having the fish course. Hans Castorp gave an exasperated shrug and angrily resolved that this time he really must find out who did it. He said this not only within himself, his lips formed the words. “I must find out,” he whispered with exaggerated earnestness. Miss Robinson and the schoolmistress both looked at him in surprise. He turned the whole upper half of his body to the left and opened wide his bloodshot blue eyes. + 

It was a lady who was passing through the room; a woman, or rather girl, of middle height, in a white sweater and coloured skirt, her reddish-blond hair wound in braids about her head. Hans Castorp had only a glimpse of her profile. She moved, in singular contrast to the noise of her entrance, almost without sound, passing with a peculiarly gliding step, her head a little thrust forward, to her place at the furthest table on the left, at right angles to the verandah door: the “good” Russian table, in fact. As she walked, she held one hand deep in the pocket of her close-fitting jacket; the other she lifted to the back of her head and arranged the plaits of her hair. Hans Castorp looked at the hand. He was habitually observant and critical of this feature, and accustomed when he made a new acquaintance to direct his attention first upon it. It was not particularly ladylike, this hand that was putting the braids to rights; not so refined and well kept as the hands of ladies in Hans Castorp’s own social sphere. Rather broad, with stumpy fingers, it had about it something primitive and childish, something indeed of the schoolgirl. The nails, it was plain, knew nothing of the manicurist’s art; they were cut in rough-and-ready schoolgirl fashion, and the skin at the side looked almost as though someone were subject to the childish vice of finger biting. But Hans Castorp sensed rather than saw this, owing to the distance. The laggard greeted her tablemates with a nod, and took her place on the inner side of the table with her back to the room, next to Dr. Krokowski, who was sitting at the top. As she did so, she turned her head, with the hand still raised to it, toward the dining-room and surveyed the public; Hans Castorp had opportunity for the fleeting observation that her cheekbones were broad and her eyes narrow.⁠—A vague memory of something, of somebody, stirred him slightly and fleetingly as he looked. + 

“Of course, a female!” he thought, or rather he actually uttered, in a murmur, yet so that the schoolmistress, Fräulein Engelhart, understood. The poor old spinster smiled in sympathy. + 

“That is Madame Chauchat,” she said. “She is so heedless. A charming creature.” And the downy flush on her cheek grew a shade darker⁠—as it did whenever she spoke. + 

“A Frenchwoman?” Hans Castorp asked, with severity. + 

“No, she is a Russian,” was the answer. “Her husband is very likely French or of French descent, I am not sure.” + 

Hans Castorp asked, still irritated, if that was he⁠—pointing to a gentleman with drooping shoulders who sat at the “good” Russian table. + 

“Oh, no,” the schoolmistress answered, “he isn’t here; he has never been here, no one knows him.” + 

“She ought to learn how to shut a door,” Hans Castorp said. “She always lets it slam. It is a piece of ill breeding.” + 

And on the schoolmistress’s meekly accepting this reproof as though she herself had been the guilty party, there was no more talk of Madame Chauchat. + 

The second event was the temporary absence of Dr. Blumenkohl from the room⁠—nothing more. The mildly disgusted facial expression suddenly deepened, he looked with sadder fixity into space, then unobtrusively moved back his chair and went out. Whereupon Frau Stöhr’s essential ill breeding showed itself in the clearest light; probably out of vulgar satisfaction in the fact that she was less ill than Dr. Blumenkohl. She accompanied his exit with comments half pitying, half contemptuous. + 

“Poor creature,” she said. “He’ll soon be at his last gasp. He had to go out for a talk with his ‘Blue Peter.’ ” + 

Quite stolidly, without repulsion, she brought out the grotesque phrase⁠—Hans Castorp felt a mixture of repugnance and desire to laugh. Presently Dr. Blumenkohl came back in the same unobtrusive way, took his place, and went on eating. He too ate a great deal, twice of every dish, always in silence, with the same melancholy, preoccupied air. + 

Thus the midday meal came to an end. Thanks to the skilled service⁠—the dwarf at Hans Castorp’s table was one of the quickest on her feet⁠—it had lasted only a round hour. Breathing heavily, and not quite sure how he got upstairs, Hans Castorp lay once more in his capital chair upon his loggia; after this meal there was rest-cure until teatime⁠—the most important and rigidly adhered-to rest period of the day. Between the opaque glass walls that divided him on the one side from Joachim, on the other from the Russian couple, he lay and idly dreamed, his heart pounding, breathing through his mouth. On using his handkerchief he discovered it to be red with blood, but had not enough energy to think about the fact, though he was rather given to worrying over himself and by nature inclined to hypochondria. Once more he had lighted a Maria Mancini, and this time he smoked it to the end, no matter how it tasted. Giddy and oppressed, he considered as in a dream how very odd he had felt since he came up here. Two or three times his breast was shaken by inward laughter at the horrid expression which that ignorant creature, Frau Stöhr, had used. + 

Herr Albin + 

Below in the garden the fanciful banner with the caduceus lifted itself now and again in a breath of wind. The sky was once more evenly overcast. The sun was gone, the air had grown almost inhospitably cool. The general rest-hall seemed to be full; talking and laughter went on below. + 

“Herr Albin, I implore you, put away your knife; put it in your pocket, there will be an accident with it,” a high, uncertain voice besought. Then: “Dear Herr Albin, for heaven’s sake, spare our nerves, and take that murderous tool out of our sight,” a second voice chimed in. + 

A blond young man, with a cigarette in his mouth, sitting in the outside easy-chair, responded pertly: “Couldn’t think of it! I’m sure the ladies haven’t the heart to prevent me from amusing myself a little! I bought that knife in Calcutta, of a blind wizard. He could swallow it, and then have his boy dig it up fifty paces from where he stood. Do look⁠—it is sharper than a razor. You only need to touch the blade; it goes into your flesh like cutting butter. Wait a minute, I’ll show it you close by.” And Herr Albin stood up. A shriek arose. “Or rather,” said he, “I’ll fetch my revolver; that will be more interesting. Piquant little tool⁠—useful too. Send a bullet through anything.⁠—I’ll go up and get it.” + 

“No, no, don’t, pray don’t, Herr Albin!” in a loud outcry from many voices. But Herr Albin had already come out to go up to his room: very young and lanky, with a rosy, childish face, and little strips of side-whisker close to his ears. + 

“Herr Albin,” cried a lady’s voice from within, “do fetch your greatcoat instead, and put it on; do it just to please me! Six weeks long you have lain with inflammation of the lungs, and now you sit here without an overcoat, and don’t even cover yourself, and smoke cigarettes! That is tempting Providence; on my word it is, Herr Albin!” + 

He only laughed scornfully as he went off, and in a few minutes returned with the revolver in his hand. The silly geese squawked worse than before, and some of them even made as if they would spring from their chairs, wrap their blankets round them, and flee. + 

“Look how little and shiny he is,” said Herr Albin. “But when I press him here, then he bites.” Another outcry. “Of course, he is loaded⁠—to the hilt,” he continued. “In this disk here are the six cartridges. It turns one hole at each shot. But I don’t keep him merely for a joke,” he said noticing that the sensation was wearing off. He let the revolver slip into his breast pocket, sat down again, flung one leg over the other, and lighted a fresh cigarette. “Certainly not for a joke,” he repeated, and compressed his lips. + 

“What for, then⁠—what for?” they asked, their voices trembling. + 

“Horrible!” came a sudden cry, and Herr Albin nodded. + 

“I see you begin to understand,” he said. “In fact, you are right, that is what I keep it for,” he went on airily, inhaling, despite the recent inflammation of the lungs, a mass of smoke and breathing it slowly out again. “I keep it in readiness for the day when I can’t stand this farce any longer, and do myself the honour to bid you a respectful adieu. It is all very simple. I’ve given the matter some study, and I know precisely how to do it.” Another screech at the word. “I eliminate the region of the heart, the aim is not very convenient there. I prefer to annihilate my consciousness at its very centre by introducing my charming little foreign body direct into this interesting organ.”⁠—Herr Albin indicated with his index finger a spot on his close-cropped blond pate. “You aim here”⁠—he drew the nickel-plated revolver out of his pocket once more and tapped with the barrel against his skull⁠—“just here, above the artery; even without a mirror the thing is simple⁠—” + 

A chorus of imploring protest arose, mingled with heavy sobbing. “Herr Albin, Herr Albin, put it away, take it from your temple, it is dreadful to see you! Herr Albin, you are young, you will get well, you will return to the world, everybody will love you! But put on your coat and lie down, cover yourself, go on with your cure. Don’t drive the bathing-master away next time he comes to rub you down with alcohol. And stop smoking cigarettes⁠—Herr Albin, we implore you, for the sake of your young, your precious life!” + 

But Herr Albin was inexorable. “No, no,” he said, “let me alone, I’m all right, thanks. I’ve never refused a lady anything yet; but you see it’s no good trying to put a spoke in the wheel of fate. I am in my third year up here⁠—I’m sick of it, fed up, I can’t play the game any more⁠—do you blame me for that? Incurable, ladies, as I sit here before you, an incurable case; the Hofrat himself is hardly at the pains any longer to pretend I am not. Grant me at least the freedom which is all I can get out of the situation. In school, when it was settled that someone was not to move up to the next form, he just stopped where he was; nobody asked him any more questions, he did not have to do any more work. It’s like that with me; I am in that happy condition now. I need do nothing more, I don’t count, I can laugh at the whole thing. Would you like some chocolate? Do take some⁠—no, you won’t be robbing me, I have heaps of it in my room, eight boxes, and five tablets of Gala-Peter and four pounds of Lindt. The ladies of the sanatorium gave it to me when I was ill with my inflammation of the lungs⁠—” + 

From somewhere a bass voice was audible, commanding quiet. Herr Albin gave a short laugh, a ragged, wavering laugh; then stillness reigned in the rest-hall, a stillness as of a vanished dream, a disappearing wraith. Afterwards the voices rose again, sounding strange in the silence. Hans Castorp listened until they were quite hushed. He had an indistinct notion that Herr Albin was a puppy, yet could not resist a certain envy. In particular, the schooldays comparison made an impression on him; he himself had stuck in the lower second and well remembered this situation, of course rather to be ashamed of and yet not without its funny side. In particular he recalled the agreeable sensation of being totally lost and abandoned, with which, in the fourth quarter, he gave up the running⁠—he could have “laughed at the whole thing.” His reflections were dim and confused, it would be difficult to define them; but in effect it seemed to him that, though honour might possess certain advantages, yet shame had others, and not inferior: advantages, even, that were well-nigh boundless in their scope. He tried to put himself in Herr Albin’s place and see how it must feel to be finally relieved of the burden of a respectable life and made free of the infinite realms of shame; and the young man shuddered at the wild wave of sweetness which swept over him at the thought and drove on his labouring heart to an even quicker pace. + 

Satana Makes Proposals That Touch Our Honour + 

After a while he lost consciousness. It was half past three by his watch when he was roused by voices behind the left-hand glass partition. Dr. Krokowski at this hour made the rounds alone, and he was talking in Russian with the unmannerly pair on the next balcony, asking the husband how he did, it seemed, and inspecting the fever chart. He did not, however, continue his route by the balconies, but skirted Hans Castorp’s section, passing along the corridor and entering Joachim’s room by the door. Hans Castorp felt rather hurt to have Krokowski circle round and leave him out⁠—even though a tête-à-tête with the gentleman was something he was far from hankering after. Of course he was healthy, he was not included with the other inmates; up here, he reflected, it was the sound and healthy person who did not count, who got no attention⁠—and this the young man found vastly annoying. + 

Dr. Krokowski stopped with Joachim two or three minutes; then he went on down the row of balconies, and Hans Castorp heard his cousin say that it was time to get up and make ready for tea. + 

“Good,” he answered, and rose. But he was giddy from long lying, and the unrefreshing half-slumber had made his face burn anew; yet he felt chilly; perhaps he had not been well enough covered as he lay. + 

He washed his eyes and hands, brushed his hair, put his clothing to rights, and met Joachim outside in the corridor. + 

“Did you hear that Herr Albin?” he asked, as they went down the steps. + 

“I should say I did,” his cousin answered. “The man ought to be disciplined⁠—disturbing the whole rest period with his gabble, and exciting the ladies so that it puts them back for weeks. A piece of gross insubordination. But who is there to denounce him? On the contrary, that sort of thing makes quite a welcome diversion.” + 

“Do you think he would really do it⁠—put a bullet into himself? It’s a ‘very simple matter,’ to use his own words.” + 

“Oh,” answered Joachim, “it isn’t so out of the question, more’s the pity. Such things do happen up here. Two months before I came, a student who had been here a long time hanged himself down in the wood, after a general examination. It was a good deal talked about still, in the early days after I came.” + 

Hans Castorp gaped excitedly. “Well,” he declared, “I am certainly far from feeling fit up here. I couldn’t say I did. I think it’s quite possible I shan’t be able to stop, that I’ll have to leave⁠—you wouldn’t take it amiss, would you?” + 

“Leave? What is the matter with you?” cried Joachim. “Nonsense! You’ve just come. You can’t judge from the first day!” + 

“Good Lord, is it still only the first day? It seems to me I’ve been up here a long time⁠—ages.” + 

“Don’t begin to philosophize again about time,” said Joachim. “You had me perfectly bewildered this morning.” + 

“No, don’t worry, I’ve forgotten all of it,” answered Hans Castorp, “the whole ‘complex.’ I’ve lost all the clear-headedness I had⁠—it’s gone. Well, and so it’s time for tea.” + 

“Yes; and after that we walk as far as the bench again, like this morning.” + 

“Just as you say. Only I hope we shan’t meet Settembrini again. I’m not up to any more learned conversation. I can tell you that beforehand.” + 

At tea all the various beverages were served which it is possible to serve at that meal. Miss Robinson drank again her brew made of rose-hips, the grandniece spooned up her yogurt. There were milk, tea, coffee, chocolate, even bouillon; and on every hand the guests, newly arisen from some two hours’ repose after their heavy luncheon, were busily spreading huge slices of raisin cake with butter. + 

Hans Castorp chose tea, and dipped zwieback in it; he also tasted some marmalade. The raisin cake he contemplated with an interested eye, but literally shuddered at the thought of eating any. Once more he sat here in his place, in this vaulted room with its gay yet simple decorations, its seven tables. It was the fourth time. Later, at seven o’clock, he sat there again, for the fifth time, and that was supper. In the brief and trifling interval the cousins had taken a turn as far as the bench on the mountainside, beside the little watercourse. The path had been full of patients; Hans Castorp had often to lift his hat. Followed a last period of rest on the balcony, a fugitive and empty interlude of an hour and a half. + 

He dressed conscientiously for the evening meal, and, sitting in his place between Miss Robinson and the schoolmistress, he ate: julienne soup, baked and roast meats with suitable accompaniments, two pieces of a tart made of macaroons, butter-cream, chocolate, jam and marzipan, and lastly excellent cheese and pumpernickel. As before, he ordered a bottle of Kulmbacher. But, by the time he had half emptied his tall glass, he became clearly and unmistakably aware that bed was the best place for him. His head roared, his eyelids were like lead, his heart went like a set of kettledrums, and he began to torture himself with the suspicion that pretty Marusja, who was bending over her plate covering her face with the hand that wore the ruby ring, was laughing at him⁠— though he had taken enormous pains not to give occasion for laughter. Out of the far distance he heard Frau Stöhr telling, or asserting, something which seemed to him such utter nonsense that he was conscious of a despairing doubt as to whether he had heard aright, or whether he had turned her words to nonsense in his addled brain. She was declaring that she knew how to make twenty-eight different sauces to serve with fish; she would stake her reputation on the fact, though her own husband had warned her not to talk about it: “Don’t talk about it,” he had told her; “nobody will believe it, or, if they do, they will simply laugh at you!” And yet she would say it, say once and for all, that it was twenty-eight fish-sauces she could make. All of which, to our good Hans Castorp, seemed too mad for words; he clutched his brow with his hand, and in his amazement quite forgot that he had a bite of pumpernickel and Cheshire still to be chewed and swallowed. When he rose from table, he had it still in his mouth. + 

They went out through the left-hand glass door, that fatal door which always slammed, and which led directly to the front hall. Nearly all the guests went out the same way; it appeared that after dinner a certain amount of social intercourse took place in the hall and the adjoining salons. Most of the patients stood about in little groups chatting. Games were begun at two green extension-tables: at the one, dominoes; at the other, bridge, and here only the young folk played, among them Hermine Kleefeld and Herr Albin. In the first salon were some amusing optical diversions: the first a stereoscope, behind the lenses of which one inserted a photograph⁠—for instance, there was one of a Venetian gondolier⁠—and on looking through, you saw the figure standing out in the round, lifelike, though bloodless; another was a kaleidoscope⁠—you put your eye to the lens and slightly turned a wheel, when all sorts of gay-coloured stars and arabesques danced and juggled before it with the swift changefulness of magic. A third was a revolving drum, into which you inserted a strip of cinematographic film and then looked through the openings as it whirled, and saw a miller fighting with a chimney-sweep, a schoolmaster chastising a boy, a leaping ropedancer and a peasant pair dancing a folk-dance. Hans Castorp, his cold hands on his knees, gazed a long time into each of these contrivances. He paused awhile by the card-table, where Herr Albin, the incurable, sat with the corners of his mouth drawn down, and handled the cards with a supercilious, man-of-the-worldly air. In a corner sat Dr. Krokowski, absorbed in a brisk and hearty conversation with a half-circle of ladies, among them Frau Stöhr, Frau Iltis, and Fräulein Levi. The occupants of the “good” Russian table had withdrawn into a neighbouring small salon, separated from the cardroom by a portière, where they formed a small and separate coterie, consisting, in addition to Madame Chauchat, of a languid, blond-bearded youth with a hollow chest and prominent eyeballs; a young girl of pronounced brunette type, with a droll, original face, gold earrings, and wild woolly hair; besides these, Dr. Blumenkohl, who had joined their circle, and two other youths with drooping shoulders. Madame Chauchat wore a blue frock with a white lace collar. She sat, the centre of her group, on the sofa behind the round table, at the bottom of the small salon, her face turned toward the cardroom. Hans Castorp, who could not look at the unmannerly creature without disapproval, said to himself: “She reminds me of something, but I cannot tell what.” + 

A tall man of some thirty years, growing bald, played the wedding march from the Midsummer Night’s Dream three times on end, on the little brown piano, and on being urged by some of the ladies, began the melodious piece for the fourth time, gazing deep and silently into their eyes, one after the other. + 

“May I be permitted to ask after the state of your health, Engineer?” inquired Settembrini, who had lounged up among the other guests, hands in pockets, and now presented himself before Hans Castorp. He still wore his pilot coat and check trousers. He smiled as he spoke, and Hans Castorp felt again the sobering effect of that fine and mocking curl of the lip beneath the waving black moustaches. He looked rather stupidly at the Italian, with lax mouth and red-veined eyes. + 

“Oh, it’s you!” he said. “The gentleman we met this morning on our walk⁠—at that bench up there⁠—near the⁠—yes, I knew you at once. Can you believe it,” he went on, though conscious of saying something gauche, “can you believe it, I took you for an organ-grinder when I first saw you? Of course, that’s all utter rot,” he added, seeing a coolly inquiring expression on Settembrini’s face. “Perfectly idiotic. I can’t comprehend how in the world I⁠—” + 

“Don’t disturb yourself, it doesn’t matter,” responded Settembrini, after fixing the young man with a momentary intent regard. “Well, and how have you spent your day, the first of your sojourn in this gay resort?” + 

“Thanks very much⁠—quite according to the rules,” answered Hans Castorp. “Prevailingly ‘horizontal,’ as I hear you prefer to call it.” + 

Settembrini smiled. “I may have taken occasion to express myself thus,” he said. “Well, and you found it amusing, this manner of existence?” + 

“Amusing or dull, whichever you like,” responded Hans Castorp. “It isn’t always so easy to decide which, you know. At all events, I haven’t been bored; there are far too lively goings-on up here for that. So much that is new and unusual to hear and see⁠—and yet, in another way, it seems as though I had been here a long time, instead of just a single day⁠—as if I had got older and wiser since I came⁠—that is the way I feel.” + 

“Wiser, too?” Settembrini asked, and raised his eyebrows. “Will you permit me to ask how old you are?” + 

And behold, Hans Castorp could not tell! At that moment he did not know how old he was, despite strenuous, even desperate efforts to bethink himself. In order to gain time he had the question repeated, and then answered: “I? How old I am? In my twenty-fourth year, of course. I’ll soon be twenty-four. I beg your pardon, but I am very tired,” he went on. “ ‘Tired’ isn’t the word for it. Do you know how it is when you are dreaming, and know that you are dreaming, and try to awake and can’t? That is precisely the way I feel. I certainly must have some fever; otherwise I simply cannot explain it. Imagine, my feet are cold all the way up to my knees. If one may put it that way, of course one’s knees aren’t one’s feet⁠—do excuse me, I am all in a muddle, and no wonder, considering I was whistled at in the morning with the pn⁠—the pneumothorax, and in the afternoon had to listen to this Herr Albin⁠—in the horizontal, on top of that! It seems to me I cannot any more trust my five senses, and that I must confess disturbs me more than my cold feet and the heat in my face. Tell me frankly: do you think it is possible Frau Stöhr knows how to make twenty-eight different kinds of fish-sauces? I don’t mean if she actually can make them⁠—that I should consider out of the question⁠—I mean if she said at table just now she could, or if I only imagined she did⁠—that is all I want to know.” + 

Settembrini looked at him. He seemed not to have been listening. His eyes were set again, they had taken on a fixed stare, and he said: “Yes, yes, yes,” and “I see, I see, I see,” each three times, just as he had done in the morning, in a considering, deriding tone, and giving a sharp sound to the s’s. + 

“Twenty-four?” he asked after a while. + 

“No, twenty-eight,” Hans Castorp said. “Twenty-eight fish-sauces. Not sauces in general, special sauces for fish⁠—that is the monstrous part of it.” + 

“Engineer,” Settembrini said sharply, almost angrily, “pull yourself together and stop talking this demoralized rubbish. I know nothing about it, nor do I wish to. You are in your twenty-fourth year, you say? H’m. Permit me to put another question, or rather, with your kind permission, make a suggestion. As your stay up here with us does not appear to be conducive, as you don’t feel comfortable, either physically or, unless I err, mentally, how would it be if you renounced the prospect of growing older on this spot⁠—in short, what if you were to pack tonight, and be up and away with the first suitable train?” + 

“You mean I should go away?” Hans Castorp asked; “when I’ve hardly come? No, why should I try to judge from the first day?” + 

He happened, as he spoke, to direct his gaze into the next room, and saw Frau Chauchat’s full face, with its narrow eyes and broad cheekbones. “What is it, what or whom in all the world does she remind me of?” But his weary brain, despite the effort he made, refused an answer. + 

“Of course,” he went on, “it is true it is not so easy for me to get acclimatized up here. But that was to be expected. I’d be ashamed to chuck it up and go away like that, just because I felt upset and feverish for a few days. I’d feel a perfect coward. It would be a senseless thing to do, you admit it yourself, don’t you?” + 

He spoke with a sudden insistence, jerking his shoulders excitedly⁠—he seemed to want to make the Italian withdraw his suggestion in form. + 

“I pay every homage to reason,” Settembrini answered. “I pay homage to valour too. What you say sounds well; it would be hard to oppose anything convincing against it. I myself have seen some beautiful cases of acclimatization. There was Fräulein Kneifer, Ottilie Kneifer, last year. She came of a good family⁠—the daughter of an important government official. She was here some year and a half and had grown to feel so much at home that when her health was quite restored⁠—it does happen, up here; people do sometimes get well⁠—she couldn’t bear to leave. She implored the Hofrat to let her stop; she could not and would not go; this was her home, she was happy here. But the place was full, they wanted her room, and so all her prayers were in vain; they stood out for discharging her cured. Ottilie was taken with high fever, her curve went well up. But they found her out by exchanging her regular thermometer for a ‘silent sister.’ You aren’t acquainted as yet with the term; it is a thermometer without figures, which the physician measures with a little rule, and plots the curve himself. Ottilie, my dear sir, had 98.4°; she was normal. Then she went bathing in the lake⁠—it was the beginning of May; we were having frost at night; the water was not precisely ice-cold, say a few degrees above. She remained some time in the water, trying to contract some illness or other⁠—alas, she was, and remained, quite sound. She departed in anguish and despair, deaf to all the consolations her parents could give. ‘What shall I do down there?’ she kept crying. ‘This is my home!’ I never heard what became of her.⁠—But you are not listening, Engineer. Unless I am much mistaken, simply remaining on your legs costs you an effort. Lieutenant!” he addressed himself to Joachim, who was just coming up. “Take your cousin and put him to bed. He unites the virtues of courage and moderation⁠—but just now he is a little groggy.” + 

“No, really, I understood everything you said,” protested Hans Castorp. “The ‘silent sister’ is a mercury thermometer without figures⁠—you see, I got it all.” + 

But he went up in the lift with Joachim and several other patients as well, for the conviviality was over for the evening; the guests were separating to seek the halls and loggias for the evening cure. Hans Castorp went into his cousin’s room. The corridor floor, with its strip of narrow coco matting, billowed beneath his feet, but this, apart from its singularity, was not unpleasant. He sat down in Joachim’s great flowered armchair⁠—there was one just like it in his own room⁠—and lighted his Maria Mancini. It tasted like glue, like coal, like anything but what it should taste like. Still he smoked on, as he watched Joachim making ready for his cure, putting on his house jacket, then an old overcoat, then, armed with his night-lamp and Russian primer, going into the balcony. He turned on the light, lay down with his thermometer in his mouth, and began, with astonishing dexterity, to wrap himself in the two camel’s-hair rugs that were spread out over his chair. Hans Castorp looked on with honest admiration for his skill. He flung the covers over him, one after the other: first from the left side, all their length up to his shoulders, then from the feet up, then from the right side, so that he formed, when finished, a neat compact parcel, out of which stuck only his head, shoulders, and arms. + 

“How well you do that!” Hans Castorp said. + 

“That’s the practice I’ve had,” Joachim answered, holding the thermometer between his teeth in order to speak. “You’ll learn. Tomorrow we must certainly get you a pair of rugs. You can use them afterwards at home, and up here they are indispensable, particularly as you have no sleeping-sack.” + 

“I shan’t lie out on the balcony at night,” Hans Castorp declared. “I can tell you that at once. It would seem perfectly weird to me. Everything has its limits. I must draw the line somewhere, since I’m really only up here on a visit. I will sit here awhile and smoke my cigar in the regular way. It tastes vile, but I know it’s good, and that will have to do me for today. It is close on nine⁠—it isn’t even quite nine yet, more’s the pity⁠—but when it is half past, that is late enough for a man to go to bed at least halfway decently.” + 

A shiver ran over him, then several, one after the other. Hans Castorp sprang up and ran to the thermometer on the wall, as if to catch it in flagrante. According to the mercury, there were fifty degrees of heat in the room. He clutched the radiator; it was cold and dead. He murmured something incoherent, to the effect that it was a scandal to have no heating, even if it was August. It wasn’t a question of the name of the month, but of the temperature that obtained, which was such that actually he was as cold as a dog. Yet his face burned. He sat down, stood up again, and with a murmured request for permission fetched Joachim’s coverlet and spread it out over himself as he sat in the chair. And thus he remained, hot and cold by turns, torturing himself with his nauseous cigar. He was overcome by a wave of wretchedness; it seemed to him he had never in his life before felt quite so miserable. + 

“I feel simply wretched,” he muttered. And suddenly he was moved by an extraordinary and extravagant thrill of joy and suspense, of which he was so conscious that he sat motionless waiting for it to come again. It did not⁠—only the misery remained. He stood up at last, flung Joachim’s coverlet on the bed, and got something out that sounded like a good night: “Don’t freeze to death; call me again in the morning,” his lips hardly shaping the words; then he staggered along the corridor to his own room. + 

He sang to himself as he undressed⁠—certainly not from excess of spirits. Mechanically, without the care which was their due, he went through all the motions that made up the ritual of his nightly toilet; poured the pink mouthwash and discreetly gargled, washed his hands with his mild and excellent violet soap, and drew on his long batiste nightshirt, with H. C. embroidered on the breast pocket. Then he lay down and put out the light, letting his hot and troubled head fall upon the American woman’s dying-pillow. + 

He had thought to fall asleep at once, but he was wrong. His eyelids, which he had scarcely been able to hold up, now declined to close; they twitched rebelliously open whenever he shut them. He told himself that it was not his regular bedtime; that during the day he had probably rested too much. Someone seemed to be beating a carpet out of doors⁠—which was not very probable, and proved not to be the case, for it was the beating of his own heart he heard, quite outside of himself and away in the night, exactly as though someone were beating a carpet with a wicker beater. + 

It had not yet grown entirely dark in the room; the light from the little lamps in the loggias, Joachim’s and the Russian pair’s, fell through the open balcony door. As Hans Castorp lay there on his back blinking, he recalled an impression amongst the host received that day, an observation he had made, and then, with shrinking and delicacy, sought to forget. It was the look on Joachim’s face when they spoke of Marusja and her physical characteristics⁠—an oddly pathetic facial distortion, and a spotted pallor on the sun-browned cheeks. Hans Castorp saw and understood what it meant, saw and understood in a manner so new, so sympathetic, so intimate, that the carpet-beater outside redoubled the swiftness and severity of its blows and almost drowned out the sound of the evening serenade down in the Platz⁠—for there was a concert again in the same hotel as before, and they were playing a symmetrically constructed, insipid melody that came up through the darkness. Hans Castorp whistled a bar of it in a whisper⁠—one can whistle in a whisper⁠—and beat time with his cold feet under the plumeau. + 

That was, of course, the right way not to go to sleep, and now he felt not the slightest inclination. Since he had understood in that new, penetrating sense why Joachim had changed colour, the whole world seemed altered to him, he felt pierced for the second time by that feeling of extravagant joy and suspense. And he waited for, expected something, without asking himself what. But when he heard his neighbours to right and left conclude their evening cure and reenter their rooms to exchange the horizontal without for the horizontal within, he gave utterance to the conviction that at least this evening the barbaric pair would keep the peace. + 

“I can surely go to sleep without being disturbed; they will behave themselves,” he said. But they did not, nor had Hans Castorp been sincere in his conviction that they would. For his part, to tell the truth, he would not have understood it if they had. Notwithstanding which, he indulged in soundless expressions of utter astonishment as he listened. + 

“Unheard of,” he whispered. “It’s incredible⁠—who would have believed it?” And between such exclamations joined again in the insipid music that swelled insistently up from the Platz. + 

Later he went to sleep. But with sleep returned the involved dreams, even more involved than those of the first night⁠—out of which he often started up in fright, or pursuing some confused fancy. He seemed to see Hofrat Behrens walking down the garden path, with bent knees and arms hanging stiffly in front of him, adapting his long and somehow solitary-looking stride to the time of distant march-music. As he paused before Hans Castorp, the latter saw that he was wearing a pair of glasses with thick, round lenses. He was uttering all sorts of nonsense. “A civilian, of course,” he said, and without saying by your leave, drew down Hans Castorp’s eyelid with the first and middle fingers of his huge hand. “Respectable civilian, as I saw at once. But not without talent, not at all without talent for a heightened degree of oxidization. Wouldn’t grudge us a year, he wouldn’t, just one little short year of service up here. Well, hullo-ullo! gentlemen, on with the exercise,” he shouted, and putting his two enormous first fingers in his mouth, emitted a whistle of such peculiarly pleasing quality that from opposite directions Miss Robinson and the schoolmistress, much smaller than life-size, came flying through the air and perched themselves right and left on the Hofrat’s shoulders, just as they sat right and left of Hans Castorp in the dining-room. And the Hofrat skipped away, wiping his eyes behind his glasses with a table-napkin⁠—but whether it was tears or sweat he wiped could not be told. + 

Then it seemed to the dreamer that he was in the school courtyard, where for so many years through he had spent his recesses, and was in the act of borrowing a lead-pencil from Madame Chauchat, who seemed to be there too. She gave him a half-length red pencil in a silver holder, and warned him in an agreeable, husky voice to be sure to return it to her after the hour. And as she looked at him⁠—with her narrow, blue-grey eyes above the broad cheekbones⁠—he tore himself by violence away from his dream, for now he had it fast and meant to hold it, of what and whom she so vividly reminded him. Hastily he fixed this occurrence in his mind, to have it fast for the morrow. Then sleep and dream once more overpowered him, and he saw himself in the act of flight from Dr. Krokowski, who had lain in wait for him to undertake some psychoanalysis. He fled from the doctor, but his feet were leaden; past the glass partitions, along the balconies, into the garden; in his extremity he tried to climb the red-brown flagstaff⁠—and woke perspiring at the moment when the pursuer seized him by his trouser-leg. + 

Hardly was he calm when slumber claimed him once more. The content of his dream entirely changed, and he stood trying to shoulder Settembrini away from the spot where they stood, the Italian smiling in his subtle, mocking way, under the full, upward-curving moustaches⁠—and it was precisely this smile which Hans Castorp found so injurious. + 

“You are a bother,” he distinctly heard himself say. “Get away, you are only a hand-organ man, and you are in the way here.” But Settembrini would not let himself be budged; Hans Castorp was still standing considering what was to be done when he was unexpectedly vouchsafed a signal insight into the true nature of time; it proved to be nothing more or less than a “silent sister,” a mercury column without degrees, to be used by those who wanted to cheat. He awoke with the thought in his mind that he must certainly tell Joachim of this discovery on the morrow. + 

In such adventures, among such discoveries, the night wore away. Hermine Kleefeld, as well as Herr Albin and Captain Miklosich, played fantastic roles⁠—the last carried off Frau Stöhr in his fury, and was pierced through and through with a lance by Lawyer Paravant. One particular dream, however, Hans Castorp dreamed twice over during the night, both times in precisely the same form, the second time toward morning. He sat in the dining-hall with the seven tables when there came a great crashing of glass as the verandah door banged, and Madame Chauchat entered in a white sweater, one hand in her pocket, the other at the back of her head. But instead of going to the “good” Russian table, the unmannerly female glided noiselessly to Hans Castorp’s side and without a word reached him her hand⁠—not the back, but the palm⁠—to kiss. Hans Castorp kissed that hand, which was not overly well kept, but rather broad, with stumpy fingers, the skin roughened next the nails. And at that there swept over him anew, from head to foot, the feeling of reckless sweetness he had felt for the first time when he tried to imagine himself free of the burden of a good name, and tasted the boundless joys of shame. This feeling he experienced anew in his dream, only a thousandfold stronger than in his waking hour. + 