Shortly after Christmas the Herrenreiter died … But before that Christmas happened, these two holidays, or if you count the day of Christmas Eve, these three, which Hans Castorp had looked forward to with some horror and head-shaking expectation, how they would look good here, and then, as natural days with morning, noon, evening and average random weather (there was a bit of a thaw), had come up and faded no differently than others of their kind: – outwardly a little decorated and distinguished , they had exercised their rule of consciousness in the minds and hearts of the people during the period allotted to them and, leaving behind a deposit of unusual impressions, had become the near and distant past …

The Hofrat’s son, Knut by name, came on a holiday visit and lived with his father in the side wing – a handsome young man, but he was also sick of his neckcame out a little too much. One sensed the presence of young Behrens in the atmosphere; the ladies showed a thirst for laughter, an addiction to cleaning, and irritability, and their conversations concerned encounters with Knut in the garden, in the woods, or in the Kurhaus quarter. Incidentally, he himself received visitors: a number of his university friends came up into the valley, six or seven students who lived in the village but ate their meals at the Hofrat and roamed the area in a troop with their fellow students. Hans Castorp avoided them. He avoided these young people and avoided them with Joachim when necessary, unwilling to meet them. A world separated those belonging to those up here from these singers, hikers and stick-wielders, he didn’t want to hear or know anything about them. Moreover, most of them seemed to come from the north, possibly including compatriots, and Hans Castorp felt the greatest shyness of compatriots, often he disliked the possibility that any Hamburgers might arrive at the “Berghof”, especially as Behrens had said, this city always provided the institution with a substantial contingent. Maybe there were some among the heavy and moribund ones that couldn’t be seen. All that could be seen was a hollow-cheeked merchant who had been sitting at the Iltis’ table for a few weeks and who was said to be from Cuxhaven. With regard to him, Hans Castorp was pleased that it was so difficult to come into contact with people who were not at the table here, and also that his home region was large and rich in spheres. The indifferent presence of this merchant greatly allayed the apprehensions

So Christmas Eve was approaching, one day it was just around the corner and the next day it was present… It was still a good six weeks before that, when Hans Castorp was surprised that people were already talking about Christmas here : so much time left, taken arithmetically, as the entire duration of his stay according to their original estimate, together with the duration of his bedridden. Nevertheless, that was a large amount of time back then, namely the first half, as Hans Castorp later thought it to be – while the arithmetically equal amount now meant very little, almost nothing: those in the dining room, he now thought, had been right, they to be disregarded. Six weeks, not even as many as the week had days: what was that in view of the further question, what was a week, a small round trip from Monday to Sunday and Monday again. One only had to keep asking about the value and meaning of the next smaller unit to understand that adding up didn’t produce much, the effect of which was, moreover, and at the same time, a very strong foreshortening, blurring, shrinking and destruction. What was a day, roughly from the moment you sat down to lunch until that moment came again in twenty-four hours? Nothing, although it was twenty-four hours. But what was an hour spent, for example, in a rest cure, on a walk or while eating – with which the possibilities of spending this unit were as good as exhausted? Again nothing. But the summation of nothingness was not very serious in its nature. At theThe matter became most serious when one got down to the smallest detail: those seven times sixty seconds during which one held the thermometer between one’s lips in order to be able to continue the curve were exceedingly tough and weighty; they widened into a small eternity, forming deposits of supreme solidity in the shadowy flitting of great time…

The festival hardly disturbed the order of life of the Berghof residents. A well-grown fir tree had been erected a few days earlier on the narrow right side of the dining room, by the bad Russian table, and its scent, which occasionally touched the diners through the fumes of the rich corridors, called something like thoughtfulness in the eyes of individual people seven tables. At supper on December 24, the tree showed itself gaily adorned with tinsel, glass balls, gilded pine cones, small apples hung in nets, and various confections, and its colored wax candles were lit during and after the meal. In the rooms of the bedridden, too, it was said, little trees were burning; each had their own. And the parcel post had already been rich in the last few days. Joachim Ziemßen and Hans Castorp had also received shipments from far away and deep home, carefully wrapped gifts that they had spread out in their rooms: ingenious clothing, ties, luxury items made of leather and nickel, as well as lots of festive pastries, nuts, apples and marzipan – Stores which the cousins ​​eyed with doubt, wondering when the moment would ever come here to enjoy them. Schalleen had made Hans Castorp’s package, as he knew, and also after which the cousins ​​regarded with doubtful eyes, wondering when the moment would ever come to enjoy it. Schalleen had made Hans Castorp’s package, as he knew, and also after which the cousins ​​regarded with doubtful eyes, wondering when the moment would ever come to enjoy it. Schalleen had made Hans Castorp’s package, as he knew, and also afterfactual discussion with the uncles, who bought presents. A letter from James Tienappel was enclosed, on thick private paper but typed. In it, the uncle conveyed his great-uncle and his own wishes for a holiday and recovery and, for practical reasons, immediately added the New Year’s congratulations that were due next, just as Hans Castorp had done when he had written his Christmas letter and clinical report to Consul Tienappel in good time.

The tree in the dining room burned, crackled, smelled and kept the awareness of the hour awake in heads and hearts. Dressing had been done, the gentlemen wore formal suits, the women could be seen wearing jewels which might have come to them from the countries of the plains from loving husbands. Clawdia Chauchat, too, had exchanged the local woolen sweater for a salon dress, which, however, had a tinge of the arbitrary, or rather the national: it was a light-colored, embroidered belt costume of a peasant-Russian, or at least Balkan, perhaps Bulgarian basic character, trimmed with small gold spangles, its Wrinkles gave her appearance an unusually soft fullness and matched perfectly with what Settembrini liked to call her “Tatar physiognomy”, especially her “Steppenwolf lights”. People were very cheerful at the Good Russian Table; there first the champagne banged, which was then drunk at almost every table. As for the cousins, it was the great-aunt who ordered it for her niece and for Marusja, and she treated everyone with it. The menu was chosen, ending with cheesecake and sweets; coffee and liqueurs were hooked up, and now and then we calledblazing fir branch, which demanded extinguishing work, caused a shrill, excessive panic. Settembrini, dressed as usual, sat for a while at the cousins’ table towards the end of the banquet with his toothpick, teased Frau Stohr and then talked a bit about the carpenter’s son and rabbi of mankind, whose birthday today is being fictitious. Whether he really lived is uncertain. But what was born then and began its uninterrupted victorious run to this day was the idea of ​​the value of the individual soul, together with that of equality – in a word, individualistic democracy. In this sense, he empties the glass that has been pushed towards him. Ms. Stöhr found his expression “equivocal and heartless”. She rose in protest, and since they had already begun to visit the social rooms,

The socializing of that evening gained weight and life from the presentation of gifts to the privy councillor, who came over for half an hour with Knut and the Mylendonk. The action took place in the drawing room with the optical joke machines. The special gift of the Russians was something silver, a very large round plate, in the center of which was engraved the recipient’s monogram, and the utter uselessness of which was obvious. One could at least lie on the chaise longue, which the other guests had donated, although it still had no blanket or cushions, only just been covered with a cloth. But her head was adjustable, and Behrens tested her comfort by stretching out on it, his useless plate under his arm, closing his eyes andstarted snoring like a sawmill, claiming he was Fafnir with the hoard. The jubilation was general. Mrs. Chauchat also laughed a lot at this performance, her eyes narrowing and her mouth hanging open, both in exactly the same way, Hans Castorp thought, as it had been the case with Pribislav Hippe when he laughed.

As soon as the boss left, everyone sat down at the gaming tables. As always, the Russian company moved into the small salon. A few guests stood around the Christmas tree in the hall, watched the stumps of light go out in their little metal cases and nibbled on the ones hanging. At the tables, which had already been set for the first breakfast, a few people sat far apart, propping themselves up on various occasions, in separate silence.

Christmas Day was damp and foggy. It’s clouds, said Behrens, in which one sits; There would be no fog up here. But clouds or fog, in any case, the wetness was sensitive. The lying snow thawed on the surface, became porous and sticky. Face and hands froze in spa work much more embarrassingly than in a sunny frost.

The day was marked by a musical event in the evening, a real concert with rows of chairs and printed programs, which was offered to those up here by the “Berghof” house. It was a recital given by a local resident and professional singer, with two medals tucked under the neckline of her ball gown, arms like sticks, and a voice whose peculiar tonelessness offered saddening information as to the reasons for her settling up here. She sang:

“I wear my love

around with me.”

The pianist who accompanied her was also a local… Mrs. Chauchat sat in the front row, but used the break to withdraw, so that Hans Castorp took on the music (it was music by all means) with a calm heart from then on could listen by reading the lyrics of the songs printed on the program while singing. Settembrini sat at his side for a while, but then disappeared after hearing the muffled bel cantothe locals noted something plump, plastic and expressed his satirical satisfaction that they were so faithful and trusting among themselves this evening. To tell the truth, Hans Castorp felt relief when they were both gone, the narrow-eyed girl and the pedagogue, and he was free to devote his attention to the songs. He thought it was a good thing that music was being made all over the world and under the most unusual of circumstances, probably even on polar expeditions.

Boxing Day differed in nothing more than the keen awareness of its presence from an ordinary Sunday, or even just a weekday, and when it was over Christmas was in the past—or, just as correctly, it was in again Distant future, a year away: twelve months were now again until it would be renewed in the cycle – finally only seven months more than Hans Castorp had already spent here.

But right after this year’s Christmas, before the New Year, the Herrenreiter died. The cousins ​​found out from Alfreda Schildknecht, known as Sister Berta,poor Fritz Rotbein’s nurse, who discreetly told them what had happened in the corridor. Hans Castorp took a keen interest in it, partly because the Herrenreiter’s expressions of life were among the first impressions he received up here – among those which first seemed to him to have caused the warm reflex in the skin of his face, which has not since then had wanted to give way – partly for moral, one might say spiritual reasons. He kept Joachim in conversation with the deaconess for a long time, who enjoyed the speech and exchange with clinging gratitude. It was a miracle, she said, that the Herrenreiter was able to live to see the festival. He had long since proved himself to be a tenacious cavalier, but no one could understand what he was breathing with at the end. For days he had only been able to keep himself going with the help of enormous amounts of oxygen: yesterday alone he had consumed forty balloons, each costing six francs. That must have turned into money, as the gentlemen could calculate, and it should be borne in mind that his wife, in whose arms he later died, was left completely penniless. Joachim disapproved of this expense. Why the torment and expensive artificial delay in a completely hopeless case? The man shouldn’t be blamed for blindly consuming the expensive life gas, since it had been forced on him. On the other hand, those treating him should have thought more sensibly and in God’s name should have let him go his inevitable path, quite apart from the circumstances and even more so with regard to them. The living also have a right and so on. Hans Castorp emphatically contradicted this. His cousin speaks almost like Settembrini, without respect or shynessthe suffering. The gentleman rider died in the end, that’s where the fun stopped, there was nothing more you could do to show you were serious, and a dying person deserves every respect and honor, Hans Castorp insists. He just wanted to hope that Behrens hadn’t finally yelled at the Herrenreiter and scolded him irreverently? No reason, explained the Schildknecht. The gentleman rider made a small, careless attempt to escape and wanted to jump out of bed; but a slight reference to the futility of such a beginning was enough to make him desist from it once and for all.

Hans Castorp examined the deceased. He did it out of defiance of the prevailing system of secrecy, because he despised the egoistic non-knowledge, non-see-nothing-and-hear-nothing of others and wished to contradict it by his actions. At the table he had tried to raise the matter of death, but had been met with a unanimous rejection of the subject, so stubborn that it had shamed and outraged him. Frau Stohr had become downright rude. What did he think of starting with something like that, she had asked, and what sort of upbringing did he actually enjoy. The order in the house carefully protects them, the patients, from being touched by such stories, and here comes a greenhorn and talks about it very loudly, over the roast and again in the presence of Dr. Cauliflower, which it could happen every day. (This behind the hand.) If that happens again, she will be sued. It was then that the one being scolded made the decision and also expressed it, for himself by visiting the departed member of the household andto pay their last respects to a quiet devotional service at his bedside, and he had also determined Joachim to do the same.

Through the mediation of Sister Alfreda, they gained entry to the death room, which was on the first floor below their own rooms. The widow received her, a little, disheveled blonde who had been taken away by night watches, handkerchief over her mouth, with a red nose and in a thick plaid coat, the collar of which she had turned up because it was very cold in the room. The heating was turned off, the balcony door open. In a low voice the young people said what was necessary and then, painfully invited by a gesture of the hand, they went across the room to the bed – with reverentially rocking steps they walked forward, not using the heels of their boots, and stood in contemplation at the dead man’s bed, each one after his own Art: Joachim formally closed, in a saluting half-bow, Hans Castorp relaxed and absorbed, hands crossed in front of him, his head on his shoulder, with an expression similar to that with which he used to listen to music. The gentleman’s head was bedded high, so that the body, this long structure and multiple cycle of generation of life, with the elevation of the feet at the end under the blanket, seemed all the flatter, almost flat like a board. A garland of flowers lay near the knees, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the large, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, similar to the one with which he used to listen to music. The gentleman’s head was bedded high, so that the body, this long structure and multiple cycle of generation of life, with the elevation of the feet at the end under the blanket, seemed all the flatter, almost flat like a board. A garland of flowers lay near the knees, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the large, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, similar to the one with which he used to listen to music. The gentleman’s head was bedded high, so that the body, this long structure and multiple cycle of generation of life, with the elevation of the feet at the end under the blanket, seemed all the flatter, almost flat like a board. A garland of flowers lay near the knees, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the large, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, this long structure and multiple cycle of procreation of life, with the elevation of the feet at the end under the blanket, the flatter, almost board-like flat appeared. A garland of flowers lay near the knees, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the large, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, this long structure and multiple cycle of procreation of life, with the elevation of the feet at the end under the blanket, the flatter, almost board-like flat appeared. A garland of flowers lay near the knees, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the large, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the great, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way, and the palm branch protruding from it touched the great, yellow, bony hands that were clasped on the sunken breast. Yellow and bony was also the face with the bald skull, the bumpy nose, the sharp cheekbones and the bushy, reddish-blond mustache, the thickness of which deepened the grey, stubbly cavities of the cheeks even more. The eyes were closed in a certain unnaturally fixed way,– pressed shut, Hans Castorp had to think, not shut: it was called the last act of love, although it was done more for the sake of the survivors than for the sake of the dead. It also had to be done in good time, immediately after death; for once the formation of myosin in the muscles had progressed, it was no longer possible, and he lay and stared, and the thoughtful idea of ​​”sleep” was done.

Knowledgeable and in his element in more than one respect, Hans Castorp stood by the camp, knowledgeable but pious. “He seems to be asleep,” he said for humanity, though there were great differences. And then, in a suitably subdued voice, he began a conversation with the Herrenreiter’s widow, made inquiries about her husband’s story of suffering, his last days and moments, the transport of the body to Carinthia that was to be carried out, partly medical, partly spiritual and moral Participation and initiation testified. The widow, in her Austrian drawl and nasal way of speaking, and sometimes sobbing, found it remarkable that young people should be so inclined to occupy themselves with the grief of others; to which Hans Castorp replied that he and his cousin were ill themselves, moreover, for his person, he confessed early on at the deathbeds of close relatives that he was a double orphan, that death had been familiar to him for a long time, so to speak. She asked what profession he had chosen. He replied that he had “been” a technician. – Been? – Was insofar as the illness and a stay up here for a very indefinitely limited period intervened, which represents a significant turning point and possibly something like a turning point in life, what can one doknowledge. (Joachim looked at him with searching terror.) And his cousin? – He wants to be a soldier in the lowlands, he is an aspiring officer. – Oh, she said, the warrior’s trade is of course also a profession that takes one to be serious, a soldier must reckon with the possibility of coming into close contact with death and it would do well to get used to the sight of it early on. She gave the young people leave of absence with gratitude and friendly composure, which must arouse respect in view of their uneasy situation and especially the high oxygen bill left behind by the husband. The cousins ​​returned to their floor. Hans Castorp was satisfied with the visit and spiritually stimulated by the impressions he received.

” Requiescat in pace ,” he said. ” Sit tibi terra levis. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine.You see, when it comes to death and one speaks to the dead or about the dead, Latin comes into force again, that’s the official language in such cases, and one notices what a special thing death is is. But it is not out of humanistic courtesy that one speaks Latin in his honor, the language of the dead is not educated Latin, you understand, but from a completely different spirit, a completely opposite one, one could say. It’s Sacred Latin, monastic dialect, medieval, kind of a dull, monotonous, subterranean song – Settembrini wouldn’t like it, it’s not for humanists and republicans and such pedagogues, it’s from a different school of thought, the other one that exists. I find,and the free. They both have their advantages, but what I have on my heart against the free one, I mean the Settembrian one, is only that it thinks it has the complete right to human dignity, that’s an exaggeration. The other also contains much human dignity in its way and gives rise to a great deal of prosperity and proper bearing and noble formality, even more so than the ‘free’ one, although it has in mind human weakness and frailty and the thought of death and decay plays such an important part in it. Have you ever seen ‘Don Carlos’ in the theater and what it was like at the Spanish court when King Philip comes in all in black, with the Order of the Garter and the Golden Fleece, and slowly doffing his hat that almost looks like our bowler hats? – He pulls it up like this and says: ‘Cover yourselves, my grandees’ or something like that – that’s measured to the highest degree, one might say, there can be no talk of letting go and sloppy manners, on the contrary, and the queen also says: ‘In mine It was different in France’, of course, it’s too accurate and cumbersome for him, he would like it to be more cheerful, more human. But what does human mean? Everything is human. The Spanish god-fearing and humble-solemn and strictly circumscribed is a very worthy form of humanity, I should think, and on the other hand you can cover up any sloppiness and slackness with the word ‘human’, you will agree with me.” and the queen also says: ‘It was different in my France’, of course, it’s too accurate and cumbersome for him, she would like it to be more cheerful, more human. But what does human mean? Everything is human. The Spanish god-fearing and humble-solemn and strictly circumscribed is a very worthy form of humanity, I should think, and on the other hand you can cover up any sloppiness and slackness with the word ‘human’, you will agree with me.” and the queen also says: ‘It was different in my France’, of course, it’s too accurate and cumbersome for him, she would like it to be more cheerful, more human. But what does human mean? Everything is human. The Spanish god-fearing and humble-solemn and strictly circumscribed is a very worthy form of humanity, I should think, and on the other hand you can cover up any sloppiness and slackness with the word ‘human’, you will agree with me.”

“I agree with you there,” said Joachim, “of course I can’t stand slackness and letting go either, discipline is a must.”

“Yes, you say that as a military man, and I admit that the military understands these things. The widow had quiteIt is right to say of your trade that it is serious, because you always have to reckon with the worst case and that you have to deal with death. You have the uniform, it’s tight and proper and has a stiff collar, that gives you bienséance. And then you have the order of precedence and the obedience and you show yourselves honor to each other, this is done in the Spanish spirit, out of piety, I really like it. There should be more of this spirit among us civilians, in our manners and conduct, I would prefer that, I think it would be appropriate. I think the world and life are so arranged that one should generally wear black, with a starched ruff instead of your collar, and converse gravely, subduedly, and formally with one another about the thought of death—that would be fine with me, it would be moral. You see, that’s one of Settembrini’s mistakes and self-conceit, another one, it’s quite good that I’m talking about it. Not only does he think he has human dignity on lease, but also morality, – with his ‘practical life’s work’ and his Sunday celebrations of progress (as if one didn’t have something else to think about on Sundays than progress) and with his systematic eradication of suffering, which you know nothing about, by the way, but he has me for mine instruction about it – he wants to eradicate it systematically, by means of an encyclopedia. And if that strikes me as immoral, then what? Of course I don’t tell him, he talks me to the core in his plastic dialect and says: ‘I warn you, engineer!’ But one will be allowed to think one’s part – sire, give yourself freedom of thought. I want to tell you something”, – what then? Of course I don’t tell him, he talks me to the core in his plastic dialect and says: ‘I warn you, engineer!’ But one will be allowed to think one’s part – sire, give yourself freedom of thought. I want to tell you something”, – what then? Of course I don’t tell him, he talks me to the core in his plastic dialect and says: ‘I warn you, engineer!’ But one will be allowed to think one’s part – sire, give yourself freedom of thought. I want to tell you something”,locksmith. (They had gotten up to Joachim’s room, and Joachim was getting ready to lie down.) ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve planned. One lives here next door to dying people and with the heaviest cross and misery, but not only that one acts as if it doesn’t concern one, but one is also spared and protected, so that one just doesn’t come into contact with it comes and sees nothing of it, and the gentleman rider, they will secretly take him to the side again while we have snacks or breakfast. I find that immoral. Frau Stöhr got angry because I only mentioned the death, that’s too silly for me, even if she’s uneducated and thinks that ‘Leise,quiet, pious way’ occurs in ‘Tannhäuser’, as she did recently at the table happened so she could feel a little more moral about it, and so could the others. I have now made up my mind to take care of the heavy and moribund people in the house a little more in the future, that will do me good – our visit just now did me good to a certain extent. Poor Reuter back then, at No. 25, whom I saw through the door once in my early days, must have been there a long time agogone ad penates and secretly taken to the side – even then he had such exaggeratedly large eyes. But that’s what others are there for, the house is full, there’s always a newcomer, and Sister Alfreda or the matron or even Behrens herself will certainly help us to establish one or the other relationship, it won’t be difficult to do. Suppose it’s someone’s moribund birthday and we find out – that can be found out. All right, we’ll send a flower pot to the person in question – or her – him or her, as the case may beZimmer, a courtesy from two unnamed colleagues, – best wishes for a speedy recovery, – the word recovery, politely, always stays in place. Then, of course, we will be named to the person concerned, and he or she, in her weakness, will let us say a friendly greeting through the door, and perhaps she will invite us into the room for a moment and we will exchange a few more human words with him before he dissolves. That’s what I think. don’t you agree For my part, at least, that’s what I intend to do.”

Joachim did not have much to say against these intentions. “It’s against the house rules,” he said; “You’re kind of breaking through with it. But as an exception, and if you have the desire, Behrens will probably give you permission, I think. You can refer to your medical interest.”

“Yes, among other things,” said Hans Castorp; for it was really intricate motives from which his desire arose. The protest against the prevailing egoism was only one of them. What also spoke was in particular the need of his spirit to be allowed to take suffering and death seriously and to respect it – a need for which he hoped satisfaction and strengthening from approaching the heavy and dying, as a counterbalance to the many insults he suffered otherwise found it exposed at every turn, every day and hourly, and through which certain judgments of Settembrini received an insulting confirmation. There are only too many examples; if you had asked Hans Castorp, he might have first mentioned people in the Berghof house whowere admittedly not ill at all and completely voluntarily, under the official pretext of being slightly ill, but in reality only for their amusement and because the patient’s way of life appealed to them, a lively woman lived here, like the already mentioned widow Hessenfeld, whose passion was Betting was: she bet with the gentlemen, bet on anything and everything, bet on the weather that would happen, what courts there would be, on the results of general investigations and how many months someone would be given, on certain bobs , ice sleds, ice skating or skiing champions at sporting competitions, the course of developing love stories among the guests and a hundred other, often completely irrelevant and indifferent things, bet on chocolate,about champagne and caviar, which were then ceremoniously consumed in the restaurant, about money, about cinema tickets and even about kisses, to give and to take – in short, with this passion of hers she brought a lot of excitement and life into the dining room, only that her hustle and bustle young Hans Castorp naturally did not want to consider very serious, yes, that their mere presence appeared to him as an impairment of the dignity of a place of suffering.

For to protect this dignity and to uphold it from himself, he was faithfully striving inwardly, however difficult it might be for him after a stay of almost six months among those up here. The glimpses that he gradually gained into their lives and doings, their customs and views, were of little help to his good will. There were those two skinny cuties, seventeen and eighteen years old and called “Max and Moritz”, who got out in the eveningfor the purpose of playing poker and drinking in the company of ladies, there was plenty to talk about. Recently, that is, about eight days after the New Year (for it must be remembered that as we speak, time moves restlessly on in its quiet, flowing way), the news had spread at breakfast that the lifeguard had the two of them on in crumpled formal suits in the morning affected their beds. Hans Castorp laughed too; but if it shamed his goodwill, it was not much compared with the stories of the lawyer Einhuf from Jüterbog, a goateed forty-something with black-haired hands, who for some time had been sitting at Settembrini’s table in place of the recovered Swede and had not only came home drunk every night but had not done so at all the other day rather had been found in the meadow. He was regarded as a dangerous Liederjahn, and Frau Stöhr could point her finger at the young lady – engaged in the lowlands, by the way – who had been seen coming out of Einhuf’s room at a certain hour, clad only in a fur coat, under which she had nothing else should have worn as a reform pant. That was scandalous – not only in a general moral sense, but scandalous and insulting for Hans Castorp personally, in the sense of his intellectual endeavors. But there was also the fact that he could not think of the lawyer as a person without also including Franzchen Oberdank, the neatly parted daughter of the house who had been brought up a few weeks earlier by her mother, a dignified provincial lady. On her arrival and after the first examination, Franzchen Oberdank had been considered slightly ill; but if she had made mistakes, she likedthere is a case in which the air is not initially both against , but above all once forWhether the illness had been good, or whether the little one had become entangled in some intrigue and excitement that had harmed her, four weeks after her arrival it happened that, coming from a new examination, she blew her handbag up in the air as she entered the dining room and exclaimed in a high voice: “Hooray, I have to stay a year!!” – at which a Homeric laughter had spread throughout the hall. But fourteen days later the news had circulated that Attorney Einhuf had acted like a scoundrel to Franzchen Oberdank. Incidentally, this expression comes from our account or at most from Hans Castorp; for the bearers of the message did not seem new enough in its essence to encourage such strong words. They also shrugged their shoulders, that two stories belonged to such stories, and that presumably nothing had happened against the wishes and will of one of the participants. At least that was Frau Stoehr’s behavior and moral mood in the matter in question.

Karoline Stohr was horrible. If anything disturbed the young Hans Castorp in his honestly meant intellectual endeavors, it was this woman’s being and nature. Her constant educational blunders would have sufficed. She said “agonje” instead of “death struggle”; “insolvent” when she accused someone of impudence, and spouted the most horrid nonsense about the astronomical processes that bring about a solar eclipse. With the lying snow masses, she said, it was “a real capacity”; and one day she put Mr. Settembrini in long-runningAstonishment at the news that she was reading a book taken from the institution’s library that concerned him, namely “Benedetto Cenelli in Schiller’s translation”! She loved sayings that got on the nerves of young Hans Castorp because of their tastelessness and fashionable vulgarity, such as: “That’s the height!” or: “You don’t know it!” And since the term “dazzling” , which the mouth of fashion had long used for “splendid” or “excellent”, proving to be completely worn out, exhausted, prostituted and thus outdated, she threw herself on the newest, namely the word “devastating”, and now found, in Seriously or mockingly, everything was “devastating”, the sled run, the pastry and her own body heat, which also seemed disgusting. Added to this was her love of gossip, which was inordinate. Even though she might say that Frau Salomon is wearing the most expensive lingerie today, because she has been ordered for an examination and is adorning herself in front of the doctors with her fine underwear: – it was correct, Hans Castorp himself had gained the impression that the procedure of the examination , regardless of the result, gave the ladies pleasure, and that they adorned themselves coquettishly for it. But what should one say about Frau Stohr’s assurance that Frau Redisch from Posen, who was suspected of having a tuberculous spinal cord, had to march back and forth in the room once a week for ten minutes, completely naked, in front of Hofrat Behrens? The improbability of this assertion almost equaled its scandalousness, but Frau Stoehr defended and conjured it to the utmost—although it seemed hard to understand how the poor responded to things like thisliked because her own affairs gave her a hard time. For in between attacks of cowardly and whining anxiety plagued her, the occasion of which was her supposedly increasing “slackness” or the rising of her curve. She came to the table sobbing, tears streaming down her brittle red cheeks, and wept into her handkerchief that Behrens wanted to send her to her bed, but she wanted to know what he had said behind her back, what was wrong with her, how she was , she wants to face the truth! One day, to her horror, she noticed that the foot of her bed was towards the front door, and she almost went into convulsions at the discovery. Her anger, her horror was not readily understood, Hans Castorp in particular did not understand it immediately. So what? How come? Why shouldn’t the bed stand as it stands? But, for God’s sake, didn’t he understand! “Feet first…! She made a desperate noise, and the bed had to be moved at once, although from then on she looked from the pillow into the light, which disturbed her sleep.

All this was not serious; it met Hans Castorp’s spiritual needs very little. A frightful incident, which occurred at a meal about this time, made a special impression on the young man. A still new patient, the teacher Popów, a thin and quiet man, who had found a seat at the Good Russian Table with his equally thin and quiet bride, turned out to be epileptic while the meal was in full swing, having a blatant seizure of this kind, fell to the ground with that scream, whose demonic and extra-human character has often been described, and collapsed beside his chairthrashing about in the most hideous contortions with arms and legs. To make matters worse, it was a fish dish that had just been served, so that there was a risk that Popów, in his convulsive ecstasy, might injure himself on a bone. The uproar was indescribable. The ladies, Mrs. Stöhr first, but without the women Salomon, Redisch, Hessenfeld, Magnus, Iltis, Levi and whatever their names might have been, giving in to her, were overcome by the most varied of states, so that some of them almost made Mr. Popów did the same. Their screams shrilled. One saw nothing but clenched eyes, open mouths and contorted torsos. A single one preferred quiet swooning. Attacks of choking ensued, as everyone was caught off guard by the wild chewing and swallowing event. A part of the dinner party fled through the available exits, also through the patio doors, although it was very cold and wet outside. The whole incident, however, had a peculiar tone which, in addition to its horrific nature, was also offensive, thanks to a general connection of ideas which is reminiscent of the most recent lecture by Dr. Krokowski’s. The analyst, in his remarks on love as a disease-forming power, had just come to talk about epilepsy last Monday and had this suffering, in which mankind in pre-analytic times saw alternately a holy, even prophetic visitation and a devil’s possession, with semi-poetic, addressed in semi-relentlessly scientific words as the brain’s equivalent of love and orgasm, in short,of the lecture, as wild revelation and mysterious scandal had to be understood, so that a certain modesty was expressed in the veiled escape of the ladies. The Hofrat himself was present at the meal, and it was he who, together with the Mylendonk and a few young, sturdy table comrades, carried the ecstatic, blue, foaming, stiff and distorted as he was, out of the hall into the hall. where you could see the doctors, the matron and other staff handling the senseless man for a long time, who was then carried away on a stretcher. A short time later, however, Mr. Popów was seen happily sitting again at the Good Russian Table in the company of his equally happily married bride, finishing his lunch as if nothing had happened!

Hans Castorp had witnessed the event with outward signs of respectful terror, but actually this didn’t strike him as serious either, God help him. Of course, Popów could have choked on his bite of fish, but in reality he hadn’t choked, but in spite of all his unconscious anger and merriment he had been paying attention to himself. Now he sat happily, finished his meal, and acted as if he had never behaved like a berserk and a frenzied drunkard, certainly did not remember it. But even his appearance was not designed to strengthen Hans Castorp’s reverence for suffering; she too, in her way, increased the impressions of irresponsible licentiousness to which he reluctantly found himself up here,

On the cousins’ floor, not far from their rooms, lay a very young girl, Leila Gerngross, who, according to Sister Alfreda, was about to die. She had suffered four major hemorrhages in ten days, and her parents had come upstairs to perhaps bring her home alive; but that did not seem feasible: the privy councilor denied that poor little Gerngross could be transported. She was sixteen, seventeen years old. Hans Castorp saw the right opportunity here to realize his plan with the flower pot and the get well wishes. Admittedly, it was not Leila’s birthday, nor would it, according to human foresight, live to see it, since, as Hans Castorp had scouted out, only fell in spring; yet, in his mind, that need not be an impediment to such merciful homage. On a midday walk in the vicinity of the Kurhaus, he and his cousin entered a flower shop, whose earthy, damp and fragrant atmosphere he breathed in with trembling chests, and bought a pretty hydrangea plant, which he bought without naming his name, with a card that only said, “From two housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery” was written, which gave instructions to send small moribunds to their room. He acted happily, pleasantly dazed by the bubbling plants, the tepid warmth of the place that made his eyes water after the cold outside, with a pounding heart and a sense of the adventurous, daring, usefulness of his inconspicuous undertaking, to which he secretly attached symbolic importance. On a midday walk in the vicinity of the Kurhaus, he and his cousin entered a flower shop, whose earthy, damp and fragrant atmosphere he breathed in with trembling chests, and bought a pretty hydrangea plant, which he bought without naming his name, with a card that only said, “From two housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery” was written, which gave instructions to send small moribunds to their room. He acted happily, pleasantly dazed by the bubbling plants, the tepid warmth of the place that made his eyes water after the cold outside, with a pounding heart and a sense of the adventurous, daring, usefulness of his inconspicuous undertaking, to which he secretly attached symbolic importance. On a midday walk in the vicinity of the Kurhaus, he and his cousin entered a flower shop, whose earthy, damp and fragrant atmosphere he breathed in with trembling chests, and bought a pretty hydrangea plant, which he bought without naming his name, with a card that only said, “From two housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery” was written, which gave instructions to send small moribunds to their room. He acted happily, pleasantly dazed by the bubbling plants, the tepid warmth of the place that made his eyes water after the cold outside, with a pounding heart and a sense of the adventurous, daring, usefulness of his inconspicuous undertaking, to which he secretly attached symbolic importance. which he gave instructions to the little moribund to be sent to the room without naming names, with a card on which only “From two housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery” was written. He acted happily, pleasantly dazed by the bubbling plants, the tepid warmth of the place that made his eyes water after the cold outside, with a pounding heart and a sense of the adventurous, daring, usefulness of his inconspicuous undertaking, to which he secretly attached symbolic importance. which he gave instructions to the little moribund to be sent to the room without naming names, with a card on which only “From two housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery” was written. He acted happily, pleasantly dazed by the bubbling plants, the tepid warmth of the place that made his eyes water after the cold outside, with a pounding heart and a sense of the adventurous, daring, usefulness of his inconspicuous undertaking, to which he secretly attached symbolic importance.

Leila Gerngross did not enjoy private care, but was under the direct care of Fraulein von Mylendonksand the doctors; but Sister Alfreda went in and out with her, and she reported to the young people the effect of her attentions. The little girl, in the hopeless limitations of her condition, had been childishly happy at the stranger’s greeting. The plant stood by her bed, caressed her with eyes and hands, made sure to water her, and clung to her with her tormented eyes even through the worst fits of coughing that afflicted her. Her parents, Major Gerngross and Frau, had also been touched and delighted, and since they, without any acquaintance in the house, could not even try to guess the donor, Schildknecht, as she confessed, could not resist to lift the anonymity and to name the cousins ​​as donors.

The dying woman was an exceedingly lovely blond creature with forget-me-not blue eyes who, despite terrible loss of blood and breathing that was only possible through the use of a very inadequate remnant of fit lung tissue, presented a delicate but not really miserable sight. She thanked him and chatted in a slightly flat but pleasant voice. A rosy glow rose on her cheeks and stayed there. Hans Castorp, who had explained his actions to the parents who were present and to them as one would expect, and had in a sense apologized, spoke in a low voice, moved, with tender deference. Not much was missing – the inner drive to do soat any rate, there was one – that he had gotten down on one knee in front of the bed, and for a long time he held Leila’s hand in his, although this hot little hand was not only damp but downright wet, for the child’s sweating was excessive; She was constantly expending so much water that her flesh would have shriveled up and dried up long ago if the greedy consumption of lemonade, of which there was also a carafe full on her bedside table, had not more or less balanced the transudation. The parents, sorrowful as they were, kept up the brief conversation of human manners with inquiries about the personal circumstances of their cousins ​​and other conversational means. The Major was a broad-shouldered man with a low forehead and a ruffled mustache – a giant whose organic innocence in the daughter’s disposition and receptiveness was obvious. His wife, a small person of a decidedly phthisical type, whose conscience seemed to be burdened because of this dowry, was evidently much more to blame. When, after ten minutes, Leila showed signs of exhaustion, or rather overstimulation (the rosy redness of her cheeks increased while her forget-me-not eyes glittered alarmingly), and the cousins, warned to do so by Nurse Alfreda with her looks, said goodbye, Frau Gerngross accompanied them to the door and indulged in self-accusations, which Hans Castorp felt strangely. It came from her, from her alone, she assured me contritely; The poor child could only have it from her, her husband was completely uninvolved in it, had nothing to do with it in the slightest.a little and to top it all off, a very short time, as a young girl. Then she got over it, completely, as was testified to her, because she wanted to marry, so much she wanted to marry and live, and she succeeded, completely healed and recovered, she married her dear, strong husband , who for his part never even remotely thought of such stories. But no matter how pure and strong he was, he had not been able to prevent the accident with his influence. Because with the child, the terrible things that were buried and forgotten came to light again, and it couldn’t get over it, it perished from it, while she, the mother, had gotten over it and had reached a solid old age – it died , the poor, dear thing, the doctors gave no more hope, and she alone was to blame for her previous life.

The young people tried to comfort her, spoke up about the possibility of a happy turn of events. But the majoress only sobbed and thanked them again for everything, for the hydrangea and for distracting and making the child a little happy with her visit. The poor thing would lie there in her torment and loneliness, while other young things would enjoy their lives and dance with handsome young gentlemen, for which the illness in no way kills their desire. They would have brought her some sunshine, my God, probably the last. The hydrangea was like a success at the ball and the chat with the two stately cavaliers like a nice little flirt for her, she, Mother Gerngross, saw that very well.

Hans Castorp was now embarrassed by this, especially since the Majorin didn’t correctly use the word “flirt” on top of thatdoesn’t mean English, but pronounced it with a German i, which irritated him immensely. Nor was he a stately cavalier, but had visited little Leila as a protest against the prevailing egoism and in a medical-spiritual opinion. In short, he was somewhat upset about the final outcome of the matter, as far as the Major’s opinion was concerned, but otherwise very animated and pleased with the conduct of the undertaking. Two impressions in particular: the earthy scents of the flower shop and the wetness of Leila’s little hands had stayed with him in soul and mind. And since a start had been made, he and Sister Alfreda made an appointment the same day to visit her fosterling Fritz Rotbein, who was so terribly bored along with his nurse, although if not all signs were deceiving him,

It didn’t help the good Joachim, he had to keep up. Hans Castorp’s drive and charitable spirit of enterprise were stronger than his cousin’s dislike, which the latter could at most assert by remaining silent and casting down his eyes, since he would not have been able to justify it without professing a lack of Christianity. Hans Castorp saw this very well and took advantage of it. He also understood exactly the military meaning of this reluctance. But what if he himself felt invigorated and happy through such undertakings, and if they seemed beneficial to him? Then he had to step over Joachim’s silent resistance. He discussed with him whether flowers could also be sent or brought to young Fritz Rotbein, although this moribundus was male. He wishedvery to do it; Flowers, he thought, were part of it; he had particularly liked the trick with the hydrangea, which had been violet and shapely; and so he decided that Rotbein’s sex would be balanced by his final condition, and that he didn’t need to have a birthday to accept donations of flowers either, since the dying were to be treated readily and permanently as birthday children. With this attitude, he and his cousin went back to the earthy, warm, fragrant atmosphere of the flower shop and walked into Herr Rotbein’s with a freshly sprinkled and fragrant bunch of roses, carnations, and levkoia, led by Alfreda Schildknecht, who had reported the young people.

The seriously ill man, barely twenty years old and already a bit bald and gray on the head, waxy and emaciated, with big hands, big nose and big ears, showed himself to tears grateful for the encouragement and distraction – he really cried a little out of weakness when he greeted the two and took the bouquet, but then, after this, immediately, if only in an almost whispering voice, came to speak of the European flower trade and its ever-increasing verve, of the enormous exports from the nurseries in Nice and Cannes , the wagonloads and mail that went out from these places every day in all directions, to the wholesale markets of Paris and Berlin and to the supply of Russia. For he was a merchant, and that was his interest as long as he was alive. His father,But his feverish illness was regarded as typhoid and treated accordingly, which meant putting him on a water-soup diet, which made him so run-down. Up here he was allowed to eat, and he did it: in the sweat of his brow he sat in bed and tried to feed himself. But it was too late, his intestines were unfortunately affected, they sent him tongue and spit eel from home in vain, he couldn’t take anything anymore. Now his father, arriving from Koburg, had been summoned by telegram from Behrens. Because a decisive operation, the rib resection, is now to be carried out on him, one wants to try it anyway, although the chances are vanishing. Rotbein whispered very matter-of-factly about this and also took the question of the operation from the business side, – as long as he was alive he would look at things from this angle. The cost, he whispered, was fixed at a thousand francs, including the spinal cord anesthesia, because as good as the whole chest would come into consideration, six to eight ribs, and the question now is whether that would be a worthwhile investment in any way. Behrens persuaded him, but his interest was clear, while his seemed doubtful and one could not know whether it would not be wiser to die quietly with his ribs. whether that would be a worthwhile investment in any way. Behrens persuaded him, but his interest was clear, while his seemed doubtful and one could not know whether it would not be wiser to die quietly with his ribs. whether that would be a worthwhile investment in any way. Behrens persuaded him, but his interest was clear, while his seemed doubtful and one could not know whether it would not be wiser to die quietly with his ribs.

It was difficult to advise him. The cousins ​​thought that the Court Councilor’s outstanding surgical skill should be taken into account in the calculation. It was agreed that the opinion of old Rotbein, who was about to roll, would be decisive. At the farewell, young Fritz cried a little again, and although it was only out of weakness, the tears he shed stood in his cheststrange contrast to the dry objectivity of his way of thinking and speaking. He begged the gentlemen to repeat the visit, and they readily promised, but never got around to it. Because when the doll manufacturer arrived in the evening, the next morning they went to the operation, after which young Fritz was no longer able to receive. And two days later Hans Castorp, passing by with Joachim, saw that Rotbein’s room was being rummaged through. Nurse Alfreda had already left the Berghof house with her suitcase because she had been summoned to see another moribundus in another institution, and sighing, her pince-nez strap behind her ear, she went to him, since that was the perspective that only opened up to her.

An “abandoned,” a room that had become vacant, in which people were rummaging about, with furniture piled high on top of each other and the double door open, as one noticed when passing it on the way to the dining room or outside – was a significant, but at the same time so familiar sight that he hardly said much to you anymore, especially if you yourself, at the time, had taken possession of a room that had just “been vacated” and browsed in this way and had become at home in it. Sometimes you knew who had lived in the room in question, which at least made you think: this time and also eight days later, when Hans Castorp passed by and saw little Gerngross’s room in the same condition. In this case his understanding at first sight resisted the sense of the busyness within.

“I stand here and look around,” said Hans Castorp. “Hello, Herr Hofrat. Little Leila…”

“Well -” answered Behrens and shrugged his shoulders. After a silence, during which this gesture had an effect, he added:

“You courted her quite regularly before the gate closed? It’s nice of you to take care of my lung whistlers in their cages, relatively vigorous as you are personally. Nice trait on your part, no, no, let’s face it, it’s a pretty nice trait in your character picture. Shall I introduce you a little now and then? I still have all kinds of siskins sitting there – if you are interested. Now, for example, I jump over to my ‘Overcrowded’. Come with me? I simply introduce you as participating fellow sufferers.”

Hans Castorp said the privy councilor took his word for it and offered him exactly what he was about to ask. He gratefully makes use of the permission and joins. But who is that, the “overcrowded” and how he should understand the name.

“Literally,” said the Councilor. “Quite precise and unmetaphorical. Let her tell you the story herself.” With a few steps they were at the room of the “overcrowded”. The Hofrat pushed through the double doors, ordering his companion to wait. Short of breath, but bright and merry laughter and speech came from the room when Behrens entered and was then locked. But it also resonated with the participating visitor when a few minutes later he was admitted and Behrensintroduced him to the blond lady lying in bed, who looked at him curiously with blue eyes – pillow on her back, she lay half-sitting, uneasy, and laughed constantly, pearly, very high and silvery bright, while she struggled for breath, excited and tickled, from her anxiety, it seemed. She also laughed at the Councilor’s sayings with which he introduced the visitor to her, called the departing adieu and many thanks and goodbye, waving her hand behind him, sighed resoundingly, laughed silver barrels, braced her hands breast heaving under the batiste shirt and could not keep his legs still. Her name was Mrs. Zimmermann.

Hans Castorp knew her briefly by sight. She had sat at the table of Solomon and the gluttonous disciple for a few weeks and always laughed a lot. Then she was gone without the young man paying any attention to it. She might have left, he’d thought, as far as he’d formed an opinion about her becoming invisible. Now he found her here, under the name of the “crowded ones,” which he awaited to be explained.

“Hahahaha,” she cried, tickled, her chest flying. “Terribly funny man, this Behrens, fabulously funny and amusing man, to laugh out loud and sickly. Do sit down, Mr. Kasten, Mr. Carsten, or whatever your name is, your name is so strange, ha, ha, hi, hi, excuse me! Sit in that chair at my feet, but allow me to kick, I can – ha…a,” she sighed open-mouthed, and then bubbled again, “I can’t possibly help it.”

She was almost pretty, with clear features that were a bit too pronounced but pleasant, and a small double chin. But herLips were bluish, and the tip of the nose also showed this tint, no doubt from lack of air. Her hands, which were pleasantly thin and which fitted well to the lace cuffs of her nightgown, could no more keep still than her feet. Her neck was girlish, with “salt barrels” over her delicate collarbones, and her chest, too, held in uneasy, tight, struggling movements under the linen of laughter and shortness of breath, seemed tender and young. Hans Castorp decided to send or bring her beautiful flowers too, from the export nurseries of Nice and Cannes, sprinkled and fragrant. With some apprehension, he joined in Frau Zimmermann’s buoyant and troubled merriment.

“So you’re here visiting the High Class?” she asked. “How amusing and kind of you, ha ha ha ha! But think about it, I’m not top grade at all, that is to say, I wasn’t really, until recently, not in the slightest… Until that story told me the other day… Just listen, isn’t it the funniest thing what you have done in your whole life…’ And gasping for breath, amid tirili and trills, she told him what had happened to her.

She had come up a little ill – ill at least, because otherwise she would not have come, perhaps not quite lightly, but rather lightly than heavily. The pneumothorax, an achievement of surgical technique that was still young and quickly attained great popularity, had also proved brilliant in her case. The operation was a complete success, Mrs. Zimmermann’s condition and health made the most gratifying progress, her husband – because she was married, although childless – allowed her to be three to three years oldexpect four months back. So she made a trip to Zurich to amuse herself – there was no other reason for this trip than that of amusement. She had also been amused to her heart’s content, but, realizing the need to have herself filled up, had entrusted the business to a local doctor. A nice, funny young person, hahaha, hahaha, but what happened? He had overflowed them! There was no other word for it, the word said it all. He had meant it too well with her, had probably not really understood the matter, and in short: in a state of congestion, that is, with oppressed heart and shortness of breath – ha! hihihi – she had come back up here and was immediately put to bed by Behrens, who had thundered like murder. Because now she is seriously ill, – not really very much, but bungled, screwed up, – hahaha, his face, what a funny face he’s making? And she laughed, pointing at it with her finger, so hard at that face that her forehead also began to turn blue. But the funniest thing of all, she said, was Behrens with his storm and his rudeness – she had to laugh about it beforehand when she noticed that she was overcrowded. “Your life is in absolute danger,” he yelled at her without further ado, such a bear, hahaha, hehehe, excuse me. But the funniest thing of all, she said, was Behrens with his storm and his rudeness – she had to laugh about it beforehand when she noticed that she was overcrowded. “Your life is in absolute danger,” he yelled at her without further ado, such a bear, hahaha, hehehe, excuse me. But the funniest thing of all, she said, was Behrens with his storm and his rudeness – she had to laugh about it beforehand when she noticed that she was overcrowded. “Your life is in absolute danger,” he yelled at her without further ado, such a bear, hahaha, hehehe, excuse me.

It remained doubtful in what sense she laughed so sparklingly at the Hofrat’s statement – whether only because of her “rudeness” and because she didn’t believe in it, or although she believed in it – because that’s what she had to do – but the matter itself , that is, the mortal danger she was in just found terribly funny. Hans Castorp had itImpression that the latter was the case, and that she was really just beading, trilling and trilling out of childish carelessness and the ignorance of her bird brain, which he disapproved of. Nevertheless he sent her flowers, but he didn’t see the laughing Frau Zimmermann again either. For after she had been kept on oxygen for a few more days, she had really died in the arms of her husband, who had been summoned by telegram—a goose in folio, as the privy councilor, from whom Hans Castorp heard it, added of his own accord.

But even before that, Hans Castorp’s sympathetic enterprising spirit, with the help of the privy councilor and the nursing staff, had established further relationships with the seriously ill in the house, and Joachim had to go with them. He had to go to the son of ” Tous les deux “, the second one who was left after having long since rummaged around at the other one next door and with H₂CObeen smoked. Further to the boy Teddy, who had recently come up from the educational institute called “Fridericianum”, for which his case had been too difficult. Also to the German-Russian insurance officer Anton Karlovich Ferge, a good-natured sufferer. Furthermore, to the unfortunate and at the same time so coquettish Frau von Mallinckrodt, who also received flowers like the aforementioned, and who was even fed several times with porridge by Hans Castorp in Joachim’s presence… They soon came to be known as Samaritans and merciful brothers. One day Settembrini addressed Hans Castorp in this way.

“Sapperlot, engineer, I’ve heard some remarkable things about your change. You threw yourself on charity? Do you seek justification by good works?”

‘Not worth mentioning, Mr Settembrini. Nothing worth making a fuss about. My cousin and I…”

“But leave your cousin out of it! They’re dealing with you when you’re both making a name for yourself, that’s for sure. The lieutenant is of a respectable but simple and sane nature, causing little unrest to the educator. You won’t make me believe in his leadership. You are the most important, but also the most vulnerable. You are, if I may put it so, a problem child of life – you have to be looked after. By the way, you allowed me to take care of you.”

“Certainly, Mr. Settembrini. Once and for all. Very nice of you. And ‘problem child of life’ is pretty. What such a writer does not immediately think of! I’m not sure if I should pride myself on that title, but I have to say it sounds pretty. Yes, and I’m now dealing with the ‘Children of Death’ a bit, that’s what you mean. Every now and then, when I have time, I look around for the serious and serious ones, you understand, who are not here for their amusement and do it sloppily, but who are dying .”

“But it is written: let the dead bury their dead,” said the Italian.

Hans Castorp raised his arms and expressed with his face that so many things are written, this and that again, so that it is difficult to find out what is right and to follow it. Of course the organ grinder had asserted a disturbing point of view, that wasbeen to be expected. But even if Hans Castorp was still willing to lend an ear to him, to find his teachings worth hearing without obligation and to be pedagogically influenced to try, he was still far removed from any educational point of view for the sake of doing without undertakings that to him, in spite of Mother Gerngross and her phrase “nice little flirtation”, in spite of poor Rotbein’s sober demeanor and the silly Tirili of the overcrowded, still seemed vaguely beneficial and of significant importance.

The son of Tous-les-deux was called Lauro. He had received flowers, earthy-scented violets, “from two participating housemates, with best wishes for a speedy recovery,” and since anonymity had become a mere formality and everyone knew who made these donations, Tous-les-deux herself, the black-pale woman , spoke Mother from Mexico, at a meeting in the corridor, thanking her cousins, asking them with rattling words, but mainly with a sorrowful, inviting gesture, the thanks of her son – de son seul et dernier fils qui allait mourir aussi– to be received in person. That happened on the spot. Lauro turned out to be an astonishingly handsome young man with glowing eyes, an aquiline nose whose nostrils flared, and magnificent lips over which a little black mustache sprouted – but showed such a boastful and dramatic demeanor that the visitors, Hans Castorp really no less as Joachim Ziemßen, were glad when the door of the sickroom closed behind them. For during Tous-les-deux in her black cashmere handkerchief, her black veil knotted under her chin, transverse foldson her narrow forehead and immense skin sacks under her jet-black eyes, wandering with bent knees through the space that let one corner of her large mouth droop harmlessly low and now and then approaching those sitting by the bed to repeat her tragic parrot saying: ” Tous les dé, vous comprenez, messiés … Premièrement l’un et maintenant l’autre ” – the beautiful Lauro, also in French, indulged in rolling, rattling and unbearably grandiose rhetoric about the content that he should die like a hero remember, comme héros, à l’espagnol , like his brother, de même que son fier jeune frère Fernando, who had also died like a Spanish hero, – gesticulated, tore open his shirt to offer his yellow breast to the strokes of death, and behaved until a fit of coughing brought thin pink froth to his lips , stifling his rodomontads and causing the cousins ​​to tiptoe out.

They didn’t talk any further about the visit to Lauro, and even privately, each one for himself, they refrained from judging his behavior. But both of them liked it better with Anton Karlovich Ferge from Petersburg, who was lying in bed with his big, good-natured mustache and his larynx, which also protruded with a good-natured expression, and was recovering only slowly and with difficulty from the attempt to have the pneumothorax made, what almost cost him, Mr. Ferge, his life on the spot. He had suffered a severe shock, the pleurachok, known as an incident during this fashionable procedure. With him, however, the pleurachok was in exceedingly dangerous form,as a complete collapse and serious fainting, in a word so severe that the operation had to be interrupted and postponed for the time being.

Mr. Ferge’s good-natured gray eyes widened and his face grew sallow whenever he spoke of what must have been a dreadful event for him. “Without anesthesia, gentlemen. Okay, we can’t stand it, it’s out of the question in this case, one understands and finds oneself in the matter as a reasonable person. But the local doesn’t go deep, gentlemen, only the outer flesh dulls it, you feel it when you open it, but only a squeezing and squeezing. I lie with my face covered so I can’t see, and the assistant holds me on the right and the matron on the left. It’s like I’m being squeezed and squeezed, that’s the flesh being opened and clamped back. But then I hear the privy councillor say: ‘So!’ and at that moment, gentlemen, he begins palpating the pleura with a blunt instrument–it must be blunt, lest it puncture prematurely–palpate it to find the right place to puncture and let in the gas, and how to do it, how to runs around on my rib skin with the instrument – ​​gentlemen, gentlemen! then it was all over with me, it was over with me, it was happening to me quite indescribably. The pleura, gentlemen, should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed lest it pierce prematurely—palpate the pleura: he palpates it to find the right place to pierce and let in the gas, and how he does it, running the instrument around my pleura,—gentlemen , Gentlemen! then it was all over with me, it was over with me, it was happening to me quite indescribably. The pleura, gentlemen, should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed lest it pierce prematurely—palpate the pleura: he palpates it to find the right place to pierce and let in the gas, and how he does it, running the instrument around my pleura,—gentlemen , Gentlemen! then it was all over with me, it was over with me, it was happening to me quite indescribably. The pleura, gentlemen, should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed where he can pierce and let in the gas, and how he does it, waving the instrument around on my pleura – gentlemen, gentlemen! then it was all over with me, it was over with me, it was happening to me quite indescribably. The pleura, gentlemen, should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed where he can pierce and let in the gas, and how he does it, waving the instrument around on my pleura – gentlemen, gentlemen! then it was all over with me, it was over with me, it was happening to me quite indescribably. The pleura, gentlemen, should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed Gentlemen, this should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footed Gentlemen, this should not be touched, it must not and will not be touched, it is taboo, it is covered with flesh, isolated and unapproachable, once and for all. And now he had laid it bare and was feeling it. Gentlemen, I felt nauseous. Horrible, horrible, gentlemen – I would never have thought that such a seven times horrid and dog-footedmean feeling on earth and apart from hell at all! I fainted – three faints at once, one green, one brown, and one purple. Also, there was a stink in that swoon, the pleurachok threw itself on my sense of smell, gentlemen, it smelled beyond measure of hydrogen sulfide, like it must smell in hell, and through it all I heard myself laughing as I snapped, but not how a person laughs, but that was the most indecent and disgusting laugh that I have ever heard in my life, because having your pleura palpated, gentlemen, that is like being tickled in the most infamous, exaggerated and inhuman way, like that and it is no different with this damned disgrace and torment, and that is the pleurachok that the good Lord spare you.”

Anton Karlowitsch Ferge often returned to this “dog-fetish” experience and was not a little afraid of repeating it, not otherwise than with pale horror. Incidentally, he had known from the outset that he was a simple man, from whom everything “high” was completely alien and from whom one should not make special demands of an intellectual or comfortable nature, just as he made such demands of no one. Having agreed to this, he related, not at all uninterestingly, about his earlier life, from which the illness then threw him, the life of a traveler in the service of a fire insurance company: from St. Petersburg he had made extensive cruises and journeys across Russia to visit the insured factories and had to scout out economically dubious; because it is statisticaloccur. That is why he was sent out to sound out a company under this and that pretext and to report to his bank, so that serious losses could be prevented at the right time through increased reinsurance or the sharing of premiums. He told of wintry journeys through the vast empire, of journeys through the nights in tremendous frost, in a sledge, under sheepskin blankets, and how when he woke up he saw the eyes of the wolves glowing like stars over the snow. He had brought frozen provisions with him in a box, cabbage soup and white bread, which had been thawed at the stations when the horses were changed, and the bread had turned out to be as fresh as the first day. And it was only bad if the thaw had suddenly set in on the way:

It was in this manner that Mr. Ferge related it, stopping now and then with a sigh to remark that it was all very well, but if only the pneumothorax did not have to be tried on him again. It was nothing higher than what he said, but factual and quite good to hear, especially for Hans Castorp, who found it beneficial to hear about the Russian Empire and its way of life, about samovars, pierogi, Cossacks and wooden churches with so many onion-domed heads that they resembled fungal colonies. He also had Mr. Ferge tell about the human species there, their northern exoticism and therefore all the more adventurous in his eyes, about the Asian veins in their blood, the protruding cheekbones, the Finnish-Mongolian eyes, and he listened with anthropological considerationsShare, had Russian spoken to him too – the Eastern idiom came out quickly, washed-out, completely alien and boneless from under Mr Ferge’s good-natured mustache, from his good-natured protruding larynx – and the better (as youth is) Hans Castorp found himself of all this entertained when it was pedagogically forbidden territory in which he romped.

You often spoke to Anton Karlovich Ferge for a quarter of an hour. In between they visited the boy Teddy from the “Fridericianum”, an elegant fourteen-year-old, blond and fine, with a private nurse and in white silk, tied pajamas. He was an orphan and rich, as he said himself. In anticipation of a more serious operation, the removal of worm-eaten parts, which they wanted to try, he would sometimes leave his bed for an hour when he felt better, to join in the socializing below in his handsome sports suit. The ladies liked to flirt with him, and he listened to their conversations, for example those dealing with Lawyer Einhuf, the young lady in the reform trousers, and Franzchen Oberdank. Then he lay down again. So the boy Teddy lived elegantly into the day,

But at number fifty lay Frau von Mallinckrodt, Natalie by her first name, with black eyes and gold rings in her ears, coquettish, addicted to preening, and at the same time a female Lazarus and Job, smitten by God with every kind of stubbornness. Her organism seemed so overwhelmed with toxins that all sorts of illnesses afflicted her alternately and simultaneously. Very affectedwas her skin organ, which was largely covered by an agonizingly itchy, sore eczema here and there, including her mouth, which made it difficult to insert the spoon. Internal inflammations, such as those of the pleura, kidneys, lungs, periosteum, and even of the brain, so that she became unconscious, took turns in Frau von Mallinckrodt, and cardiac weakness, caused by fever and pain, created great anxiety for her, caused her, for example that she couldn’t swallow the food properly when she swallowed: it got stuck right up in her esophagus. In short, the woman was dreadful, and besides, all alone in the world; for having left her husband and children for another man, that is, half a boy, she was in turn abandoned by her lover, as her cousins ​​found out herself, and was now homeless, although not without means, since her husband provided them with them. She made use of his decency or his continued infatuation without undue pride, not taking herself seriously but realizing that she was just a dishonorable, sinful woman, and on that basis she bore all her troubles with astonishing patience and tenacity. the elementary resilience of her racial femininity, which triumphed over the misery of her tanned body and made a fitting costume out of the white gauze bandage she had to wear around her head for some terrible reason. She was constantly changing her jewelry, starting with corals in the morning and ending with pearls at night. Delighted by Hans Castorp’s flower show,Inviting gentlemen to her bedside for tea, which she drank from a sippy cup, her fingers, except for the thumbs, covered to the wrists with opals, amethysts, and emeralds. Soon, while the gold rings in her ears were swinging, she had told her cousins ​​how everything had happened to her: about her decent but boring husband, her decent and boring children, who were just like their father and for whom she never cared particularly warming, and about the half-boy with whom she fled and whose poetic tenderness she knew to praise very much. But his relatives got rid of him with cunning and violence, and then the little one was probably disgusted by her illness, which at that time broke out in many different ways and stormy. Whether the gentlemen were also disgusted, she asked flirtingly; and her racial femininity triumphed over the eczema covering half her face.

Hans Castorp thought contemptuously of the little one, who was disgusted, and shrugged his shoulders to express his feelings. As for himself, he allowed the mellowness of the poetic half-boy to serve as a spur in the opposite direction, and took occasion, on repeated visits, to perform petty chores with the unfortunate Frau von Mallinckrodt, which required no prior knowledge, that is, gently feeding her her lunchtime porridge to insert when it has just been served, to give her a drink from the sippy cup when the bite gets stuck, or to help her turn in bed; because, on top of everything else, an operation wound made it difficult for her to lie down. He practiced these handouts when he was upon the way to the dining room or returning home from a walk, asking Joachim to always go ahead, he just wanted to quickly check the case for number fifty a little – and felt a happy expansion of his being, a joy that was on the feeling of the usefulness and secret significance of his actions, which incidentally also mingled with a certain thieving pleasure in the impeccably Christian stamp of this activity and activity, such a pious, mild and praiseworthy stamp in fact that neither the military nor the humanistic pedagogical standpoints anything serious could be reminded against it.

Karen Karstedt has not yet been mentioned, and yet Hans Castorp and Joachim took special care of her. She was a non-resident private patient of the Hofrat, recommended by him to the charity of her cousins. For four years up here, the penniless woman had been dependent on hard relatives, who had taken her away from here before, since she was going to die, and only sent them up again when the privy councilor objected. She resided in the “village,” in a cheap boarding house–nineteen years old and slight, with straight oiled hair, eyes timidly trying to hide a gleam that matched the hectic swell of her cheeks, and a characteristically coated but likeable loud voice. She coughed almost continuously and all her fingertips were plastered

So the two of them, at the request of the privy councillor, devoted themselves particularly to her, since they were such good-hearted fellows.It began with a delivery of flowers, then followed a visit to poor Karen on her little balcony in “Village” and then this and that extraordinary undertaking for three: visiting an ice skating competition, a bobsleigh race. Because it was now the winter sports season in our high valley at full height, a festival week was celebrated, the events piled up, these merrymaking and spectacles to which the cousins ​​had previously paid no other than an occasional fleeting attention. Joachim was averse to all distractions up here. He wasn’t here for such reasons – wasn’t here at all to live and to reconcile his stay by making it pleasant and varied, but solely to detoxify himself as quickly as possible, so that he could do service on the plains, real service instead of spa service, which was a substitute but which he would only grudgingly tolerate being stolen from. He was forbidden to take an active part in Winterlust, and he had disliked playing the gawker. But as far as Hans Castorp was concerned, he felt too much, in a too strict and intimate sense, as a member of those up here to have a sense and an eye for the doings of people who saw a sports ground in this valley.

Now, however, the charitable participation for the poor Fraulein Karstedt brought about some changes in this – without appearing unchristian, Joachim could not raise any objections to it. They fetched the patient from her poor apartment in “Dorf” and led her through the glorious, hot, frosty weather through the English quarter, named after the Hotel d’Angleterre, between the luxury shops and the main street, on which sleighs rang, rich bon vivants andLoafers from all over the world, residents of the Kurhaus and the other large hotels, bareheaded in fashionable sportswear made of noble and expensive fabrics, with faces bronzed from winter sunburn and snow, went down to the not far from the Kurhaus in the depths of the valley Ice rink, which used to be a field used for football games in summer. music rang out; the spa band gave concerts on the gallery of the wooden pavilion building at the top of the square stretched track, behind which the snowy mountains stood in the dark blue. They got in, pushed their way through the audience, which surrounded the track from three sides on raised seats, found seats and watched. The skaters, in skimpy costumes, black jerseys, fur on the braided jackets, swayed, floated, drew figures, jumped and spun. A virtuoso couple, gentleman and lady, professionals and out of competition, performed something in the whole world that only he could do, unleashed fanfare and hand clapping. In the fight for the speed prize, six young men of different nationalities worked their way around the wide arena six times, bent over, hands behind their backs, sometimes handkerchiefs over their mouths. A bell rang to the music. At times the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. sometimes the handkerchief in front of the mouth, six times around the wide square. A bell rang to the music. At times the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. sometimes the handkerchief in front of the mouth, six times around the wide square. A bell rang to the music. At times the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

It was a colorful gathering in which the three patients, the cousins ​​and their protégé looked around. Englishmen in Scottish caps and white teeth spoke French to pungently scented ladies dressed from head to toe in brightly colored wool, some of whom wore breeches. Small-headed Americans, hair glued straightshag pipe in mouth, wore furs with the rough side turned outwards. Russians, bearded and elegant, barbarously rich in reputation, and Dutchmen of the Malay hybrid type sat between the German and Swiss audience, while all sorts of vague things, speaking French, from the Balkans or the Levant, an adventurous world for which Hans Castorp showed a certain weakness, and which Joachim rejected as ambiguous and lacking in character was sprinkled everywhere. Children competed in fun tasks, stumbling across the track, one foot on a snow skate and the other an ice skate, or the boys pushed their ladies on shovels in front of them. They ran with burning candles, and the winner was whoever carried his candle to the goal while it was still burning. had to climb over obstacles or pick potatoes with pewter spoons into watering cans. The big world cheered. They showed the richest, most famous and most graceful of children, the daughter of a Dutch multi-millionaire, the son of a Prussian prince and a twelve-year-old who bore the name of a world-famous champagne company. Poor Karen cheered too, coughing. She clapped her hands open fingertips in delight. She was so thankful. Poor Karen cheered too, coughing. She clapped her hands open fingertips in delight. She was so thankful. Poor Karen cheered too, coughing. She clapped her hands open fingertips in delight. She was so thankful.

The cousins ​​also took her to the bobsleigh race: it wasn’t far to the destination, neither from the “Berghof” nor from Karen Karstedt’s apartment, because the train coming down from the Schatzalp ended in “Dorf” between the settlements on the western slope. A control box was erected there, to which the departure of each vehicle from the start was reported by telephone. Between the icy onesSnow barriers, the flat scaffolding, manned by men and women in white wool, sashes in all sorts of national colors around their breasts, steered along the shiny metallic curves of the track, individually, at greater intervals, from above. One saw red, strained faces into which it was snowing. Falls, sleds that banged, rolled over and dumped their crew in the snow were photographed by the public. Music played here too. The spectators sat on small grandstands or shuffled along the narrow footpath dug alongside the track. Wooden bridges, which he later used, spanning the track and under which a competing bobsleigh sped from time to time, were also manned with people. The corpses of the sanatorium above took the same path,

One afternoon they even took Karen Karstedt to the Bioskop Theater at Platz because she enjoyed it all so much. In the bad air, which physically alienated all three, since they were only used to the purest things, weighed heavily on their chests and created a cloudy fog in their heads, a multitude of life shimmered, chopped up, entertaining and hasty, in a leaping, wriggling restlessness that lingers and twitches away, to a little piece of music that applied its current time structure to the phenomenal flight of the past and, with limited resources, knew how to pull out all the registers of solemnity and pomp, of passion, wildness and cooing sensuality, on the screen in front of their painful eyes over. It was an excited love and murder story they watched unwinding in silenceCourt of an oriental despot, hunted processes full of splendor and nakedness, full of lust for power and religious rage of subservience, full of cruelty, desire, deadly lust and of lingering vividness when it was a question of viewing the muscles of hangman’s arms – in short, produced from sympathetic familiarity with the secret desires of the onlooking international civilization. Settembrini, as a man of judgement, should have sharply denied the anti-human performance and, with straight and classic irony, should have castigated the misuse of technology to enliven such inhuman ideas, thought Hans Castorp and whispered the same thing to his cousin. Frau Stoehr, on the other hand, who was also present and was sitting not far from the three, seemed completely devoted; her red,

Incidentally, it was the same with all the faces you looked into. But when the last flickering image of a sequence of scenes jerked away, the light went up in the hall and the field of visions stood before the crowd as a blank slate, there could not even be applause. There was no one to thank with applause that could have been evoked for their artistic achievement. The actors who had gathered for the game they were enjoying had long since scattered to the winds; only the shadow images of their production had been seen, millions of images and the shortest fixations, into which their actions had been broken down, in order to give them back to the elements of time as often as they liked, too quickly. There was something nervous and sickening about the silence of the crowd after the illusion. The hands lay powerless in front of nothing.was ashamed of the brightness and longed to go back into the darkness, to look again, to see things that had their time, transplanted into fresh time and made up with music, go again.

The despot died under the knife with an open-mouthed roar that was not heard. Pictures from all over the world were then seen: the President of the French Republic in top hat and great cordon, from the seat of the landau, responding to a speech of welcome; the Viceroy of India at the wedding of a Rajah; the German Crown Prince in a barracks courtyard in Potsdam. You saw life and activity in a native village of Neumecklenburg, a cockfight in Borneo, naked savages blowing nose flutes, the capture of wild elephants, a ceremony at the Siamese royal court, a brothel street in Japan where geishas sat behind wooden cage bars. Hooded Samoyeds were seen driving in reindeer sleighs through a North Asian snow wasteland, Russian pilgrims worshiping at Hebron, bastinate a Persian delinquent. One was present at all this; space was destroyed, time put back, the there and then transformed into a scurrying, jiggling here and now surrounded by music. A young Moroccan woman, in striped silk, harnessed with chains, clasps, and rings, her bulging breast half bared, was suddenly approached to life size. Her nostrils were wide, her eyes full of animal life, her features in motion; she laughed with white teeth, holding one of her hands, whose nails seemed lighter than flesh, as a screen over her eyes, and waved the other to the audience. One stared in embarrassment into the face of the charming shadow, swaying here and now surrounded by music. A young Moroccan woman, in striped silk, harnessed with chains, clasps, and rings, her bulging breast half bared, was suddenly approached to life size. Her nostrils were wide, her eyes full of animal life, her features in motion; she laughed with white teeth, holding one of her hands, whose nails seemed lighter than flesh, as a screen over her eyes, and waved the other to the audience. One stared in embarrassment into the face of the charming shadow, swaying here and now surrounded by music. A young Moroccan woman, in striped silk, harnessed with chains, clasps, and rings, her bulging breast half bared, was suddenly approached to life size. Her nostrils were wide, her eyes full of animal life, her features in motion; she laughed with white teeth, holding one of her hands, whose nails seemed lighter than flesh, as a screen over her eyes, and waved the other to the audience. One stared in embarrassment into the face of the charming shadow, her trains in motion; she laughed with white teeth, holding one of her hands, whose nails seemed lighter than flesh, as a screen over her eyes, and waved the other to the audience. One stared in embarrassment into the face of the charming shadow, her trains in motion; she laughed with white teeth, holding one of her hands, whose nails seemed lighter than flesh, as a screen over her eyes, and waved the other to the audience. One stared in embarrassment into the face of the charming shadow,who seemed to see and did not see, who was not touched by the looks at all, and whose laughter and wave did not mean the present, but was at home in the there and then, so that it would have been pointless to return it. As I said, this added a feeling of powerlessness to the pleasure. Then the phantom disappeared. Empty brightness covered the table, the word “End” was thrown at it, the cycle of performances had come to an end, and the theater was silently cleared while new audiences crowded in from outside, who desired to enjoy a repetition of the process.

Encouraged by Frau Stöhr, who joined them, they then went to the Kurhaus café to please poor Karen, who was holding her hands together in gratitude. There was music here too. A small orchestra in red tails played under the direction of a Czech or Hungarian first violinist, who stood detached from the troupe between dancing couples and worked his instrument with fiery convulsions. Sophisticated life reigned at the tables. Rare drinks were carried around. The cousins ​​ordered orangeade for themselves and their protégé to keep them cool, because it was hot and dusty, while Frau Stöhr drank sweet schnapps. At this hour, she said, things weren’t quite right here. The dancing gets much livelier as the evening approaches; numerous patients from the various sanatoriums and wild patients from the hotels and the Kurhaus itself, much more so than now, later took part, and many a high-ranking person has danced here into eternity by tipping the cup of lust for life and the final hemorrhage indulci jubilo have suffered. What Frau Stöhr’s great lack of education made of the ” dulci jubilo ” was quite extraordinary; she borrowed the first word from her husband’s Italian musical vocabulary and thus spoke ” dolce .”’, but the second reminded one of Feuerjo, Jubilee Year or God knew what – the cousins ​​snapped at the straws in their glasses at the same time when this Latin came into force, but that didn’t bother Stöhr. Rather, she tried to get to the bottom of the relationship between the three young people by way of allusions and taunts, which stubbornly bared buck teeth, which was only clear to her as far as poor Karen was in question, who it was, Frau Stoehr said , it might be fitting to be chaperoned by two such brisk knights at the same time in their easy walk. From the point of view of the cousins, the case seemed less clear to her; but for all her stupidity and ignorance, the intuition of her femininity helped her to some insight, even if only half and ordinary. Because she understood and teasingly expressed that here was the true and true knight Hans Castorp, while young Ziemßen was merely assisting, and that Hans Castorp, whose inner direction towards Frau Chauchat was known to her, was only acting as chaperon for the miserable Karstedt, there he obviously did not know how to approach the other one – an insight only too worthy of Frau Stöhr and without any moral depth, very inadequate and of ordinary intuition, which is why Hans Castorp only replied with a tired and contemptuous look when she asked her flatly teasingly revealed. For it is true that intercourse with poor Karen meant a kind of substitute and indefinitely beneficial aid to him, like all his while young Ziemßen was merely assisting, and that Hans Castorp, whose inner attitude towards Frau Chauchat was known to her, only chaperoned the wretched Karstedt as a substitute, since he obviously did not know how to approach the other woman – an insight only too worthy of Frau Stöhr and completely lacking in moral depth, very inadequate and of vulgar intuition, which is why Hans Castorp only replied with a tired and contemptuous look when she revealed her in a flat-tongued manner. For it is true that intercourse with poor Karen meant a kind of substitute and indefinitely beneficial aid to him, like all his while young Ziemßen was merely assisting, and that Hans Castorp, whose inner attitude towards Frau Chauchat was known to her, only chaperoned the wretched Karstedt as a substitute, since he obviously did not know how to approach the other woman – an insight only too worthy of Frau Stöhr and completely lacking in moral depth, very inadequate and of vulgar intuition, which is why Hans Castorp only replied with a tired and contemptuous look when she revealed her in a flat-tongued manner. For it is true that intercourse with poor Karen meant a kind of substitute and indefinitely beneficial aid to him, like all his Frau Stöhr’s only too dignified and without any moral depth, very inadequate and of vulgar intuition, which is why Hans Castorp only replied with a tired and contemptuous look when she revealed her in a flatly teasing manner. For it is true that intercourse with poor Karen meant a kind of substitute and indefinitely beneficial aid to him, like all his Frau Stöhr’s only too dignified and without any moral depth, very inadequate and of vulgar intuition, which is why Hans Castorp only replied with a tired and contemptuous look when she revealed her in a flatly teasing manner. For it is true that intercourse with poor Karen meant a kind of substitute and indefinitely beneficial aid to him, like all hischaritable undertakings meant the same to him. But at the same time they were also an end in themselves, these pious undertakings, and the satisfaction he felt when he fed the brash Mallinckrodt with porridge, had Mr. Ferge describe the infernal Pleurachok, or poor Karen with joy and gratitude in the clapping hands with plastered fingertips was, if metaphorical and relational, at the same time immediate and pure; it stemmed from a culture of culture opposite to that which Mr. Settembrini represented pedagogically, though well worth applying the placet experiri to it, as it seemed to young Hans Castorp.

The little house in which Karen Karstedt lived was not far from the watercourse and the railway track on the road leading to the “village”, and so it was easy for her cousins ​​to pick her up if they wanted to take her with them on their official stroll after breakfast. If they went towards the village in order to gain access to the main promenade, they saw the small Schiahorn in front of them, then further to the right three prongs, which were called the Green Towers, but now also lay under dazzling snow, and still further to the right the crest of the village hill . A quarter of the way up its wall you could see the cemetery, the cemetery of “Dorf”, surrounded by a wall and apparently with a beautiful view, probably of the lake, which is why it was probably the destination of a walk. So they hiked up there once, the three of them, on a beautiful morning, – and every day was beautiful: windless and sunny, deep blue, hot and frosty and glittering white. The cousins, one brick red in the face, the other bronzed, went there in bare suitsCoats would have been a nuisance in this blazing sun – young Ziemssen in sportswear with rubber snowshoes, Hans Castorp also in the same, but in long trousers, since he wasn’t physically minded enough to wear short ones. It was between the beginning and middle of February in the new year. Quite right, the year had changed since Hans Castorp came up; one wrote another now, the next. A great hand of the world clock had fallen a notch: not one of the greatest of all, not the one that measured millennia–very few who lived would live to see that; not even those who noted the centuries or just the decades, not that. But the year hand had recently fallen, although Hans Castorp hadn’t been up here for a year, just a little more than half, and now stood firm in the manner of the minute hands of certain great clocks, falling only five minutes to five, until it would advance again. Until then, however, the month hand had to advance ten times, a couple of times more often than it has done since Hans Castorp was up here – he no longer counted February, for started was done, just as changed as well as spent.

The three of them also went for a walk to the cemetery on the Dorfberge – for the sake of exact account this excursion should also be mentioned. The suggestion for this had come from Hans Castorp, and Joachim had probably initially had reservations about poor Karen, but then he realized and admitted that it would have been pointless to play hide-and-seek with her and that she, in the interest of the cowardly Stöhr, was above all involved remembered the exitus , afraid to preserve. Karen Karstedt has not yet given in to the self-deception of the lastStadiums, but knew how it was with her and what it was about the necrosis of her fingertips. She also knew that her close relatives would scarcely want to know anything about the luxury of being transported home, but that after her death she would be assigned a modest place up there to live in. And in short, one might well find that this hiking destination was morally more fitting for them than many others, for example the bobsled run or the cinema — as it was then, by the way, no more than a decent act of camaraderie To pay a visit to those up there once to do, assuming that one does not want to regard the cemetery simply as a place of interest and a neutral area for walking.

They went up slowly in single file, because the shoveled path only allowed one single walk, left the last villas at the highest point on the Lehne behind and below them and saw the perspective of the familiar landscape in its winter splendor shift and open up a little as they climbed : it widened to the north-east, towards the valley entrance, the expected view of the lake opened up, the wooded round of which was frozen and covered with snow, and behind its farthest shore mountain slopes seemed to meet on the ground, behind which foreign peaks, snow-covered , exaggerated each other against the sky blue. They watched this, standing in the snow in front of the stone gate that formed the entrance to the cemetery, and then entered the site through the iron lattice door that was inserted into the stone gate and only ajar.

Here, too, they found paths shoveled between the fenced, snow-covered burial mounds, these welland evenly laid bedsteads with their crosses of stone and metal, their small monuments decorated with medallions and inscriptions; but no one was seen or heard. The stillness, seclusion, privacy of the place seemed deep and secret in many senses; a little stone angel or cherub god standing somewhere in the bushes with a snow cap slightly askew on his head and closing his lips with his finger might well be regarded as his genius – that is to say: as the genius of silence, and indeed of a silence, which one felt very strongly as the opposite and antithesis of speaking, as silence, but by no means as empty of content and eventless. It would have been an opportunity for the two male guests to remove their hats if they had been wearing them. But they were bareheaded

The cemetery was irregular in shape, initially stretching out as a narrow rectangle to the south and then spreading out to both sides, also in the shape of a rectangle. Apparently, several enlargements had proved necessary and a field had been added. Nevertheless, the enclosure seemed to be almost fully occupied again, both along the wall and in its inner, less preferred parts – one could hardly see or say where there might have been accommodation. The three out-of-towners wandered discreetly for a long time in the narrow corridors and passages between the wallsthey stopped every now and then to decipher a name along with the date of birth and death. The memorial stones and crosses were undemanding and showed little effort. As far as their inscriptions were concerned, the names came from all four corners of the world, they were in English, Russian or Slavic in general, also German, Portuguese and other things; the dates, however, bore a delicate character, their range was remarkably small overall, the annual interval between birth and death was around twenty and not much more, the camp was populated almost entirely by youth and no virtue, an unsteady people who came together here from all over the world and finally returned to the horizontal form of existence.

Somewhere deep in the throng of resting places, inside the green towards the middle, there was a flat spot the length of a human being, level and unoccupied, between two beds with permanent wreaths hung around the stones, and involuntarily the three visitors stopped in front of it. They stood, the young lady a little in front of her companions, and read the delicate indications of the stones – Hans Castorp relaxed, hands crossed in front of him, with open mouth and sleepy eyes, young Ziemssen closed and not only straight, but even a little behind averse from behind, – whereupon the cousins ​​surreptitiously glanced sideways at Karen Karstedt’s face with simultaneous curiosity. She noticed it anyway and stood there, bashful and modest, her head tilted forward a little, and smiled primly with pursed lips,