So on Tuesday our hero had been with them up here for a week, and so when he returned from the morning walk he found the bill in his room, his first weekly bill, a neatly executed commercial document, sealed in a greenish envelope, with an illustrated head (the Berghof building was impressively depicted up there) and on the left side adorned with an excerpt from the prospectus arranged in a narrow column, in which the “mental treatment according to the most modern principles” was also mentioned in block print. The calligraphic lists themselves amounted to almost exactly 180 francs, namely 12 francs for food and medical treatment and 8 francs for the room per day,

Hans Castorp found nothing to complain about when he checked the addition with Joachim. ‘Yes, I do not avail myself of medical treatment,’ he said, ‘but that is my affair; it is included in the board price and i candon’t ask for it to be deducted, how could that be? They make a cut with the disinfection, because for 10 francs of H₂CO they can’t possibly have blown it to smoke the American woman out. But all in all I have to say that I think it’s more cheap than expensive, considering what’s on offer.” And so, before the second breakfast, they went to the “administration” to settle the debt.

The “administration” was on the ground floor: if you followed the corridor beyond the hall, past the cloakroom and the kitchen and pantry, you could not miss the door, especially since it was marked by a porcelain sign. Hans Castorp was interested in gaining a certain insight into the commercial center of the institution. It was a real small office: a typist was at work, and three male clerks sat hunched over desks, while in the adjoining room a gentleman of the higher standing of a boss or director worked at a free-standing cylinder office, and only over his eyeglasses a cold and cast a matter-of-factly scrutinizing look at the clients. While they were being processed at the counter, changing bills, cashing in, receipting, they maintained a serious, modest, silent, even submissive attitude, like young Germans who transfer respect for the authorities, the office, to every office and office; but outside, on the way to breakfast and later during the day, they chatted a bit about the condition of the Berghof Institute, with Joachim, as the established man and the expert, answering his cousin’s questions.

Hofrat Behrens was by no means the proprietor and proprietor of the institution – although one could get that impression. Above and behind him stood invisible powers that only manifested themselves to a certain extent in the form of the office: a supervisory board, a stock company, which it might not be a bad idea to belong to, since according to Joachim’s credible assurance, despite high doctors’ salaries and the most liberal economic principles, they have one every year distribute hefty dividends among its members. So the Hofrat was not an independent man, he was nothing but an agent, a functionary, a relative of higher powers, the first and supreme of course, the soul of the whole, with a determining influence on the entire organization, not excluding the directorate, although as the doctor in charge he was of course above any occupation with the commercial part of the company. Born in north-west Germany, he was known to have gotten into this position years ago, contrary to his intention and life plan: brought up by his wife, whose remains have long since been surrounded by the cemetery of “Dorf” – the picturesque cemetery of Dorf Davos up there on the right-hand slope, further back towards the entrance of the valley. She had been a very lovely, if over-eyed and asthenic, appearance, judging from the photographs which were scattered throughout the Hofrat’s official quarters, and also from the oil portraits which, by his own amateur hand, hung on the walls there. Having given him two children, a son and a daughter, she found it easier heat-stricken body had been dragged up to these regions, and in a few months its wasting and consumption was complete. They said Behrenswho adored her was hit so hard by the blow that he temporarily lapsed into profundity and oddities and made himself conspicuous on the street by giggling, making gestures and talking to himself. He then did not return to his original sphere of life, but stayed where he was: certainly also because he did not want to part with the grave; the deciding factor, however, was probably the less sentimental reason that he himself had suffered and, according to his own scientific insight, simply belonged here. So he had established himself as one of those doctors who are fellow sufferers of those whose stay they monitor; who do not, independently of the illness, fight it from the free state of personal integrity, but themselves bear its mark – a peculiar, but by no means isolated case, which undoubtedly has its advantages as well as its doubts. Camaraderie between doctor and patient is certainly to be welcomed, and it can be heard that only the sufferer can be the guide and savior of the sufferer. But is right spiritual domination over a power possible with one who counts himself among its slaves? Can liberate who is himself subdued? The sick doctor remains a paradox for the simple feeling, a problematic phenomenon. Isn’t his spiritual knowledge of the illness perhaps not so much enriched and morally strengthened by his experience as clouded and confused? He does not face the disease with clear opposition, he is biased, he is not unequivocal as a party; and with all due caution one must ask whether someone belonging to the world of illness is actually involved in the healing or even just the preservation of othersin the sense can be interested in how a man of health …

Hans Castorp expressed some of these doubts and considerations in his own way when he chatted with Joachim from the “Berghof” and his medical director, but Joachim remarked that it was not known whether Hofrat Behrens was still a patient himself – probably he had long since recovered. It was a long time since he had started practicing here – he had done it on his own for a while and quickly made a name for himself as a sensitive auscultator and as a reliable pneumotome. Then the “Berghof” had secured his person, the institute with which he had grown so closely for almost a decade… Back there, at the end of the north-west wing, was his apartment (Dr. Krokowski lived not far from it). , and that noble lady, the Sister Superior, Settembrini, who had been spoken of so scornfully and whom Hans Castorp had hitherto only glimpsed, headed the small widower’s household. For the rest, the privy councilor was alone, for his son was studying at German universities, and his daughter was already married to a lawyer in the French part of Switzerland. Young Behrens sometimes came to visit during the holidays, which had happened once before during Joachim’s stay, and he said that the ladies of the institution were then very moved, the temperature rose, jealousies led to quarrels and arguments in the lying-in halls, and increased There is a rush to Dr. Krokowski’s special consultation hour… and his daughter was already married: namely, to a lawyer in the French part of Switzerland. Young Behrens sometimes came to visit during the holidays, which had happened once before during Joachim’s stay, and he said that the ladies of the institution were then very moved, the temperature rose, jealousies led to quarrels and arguments in the lying-in halls, and increased There is a rush to Dr. Krokowski’s special consultation hour… and his daughter was already married: namely, to a lawyer in the French part of Switzerland. Young Behrens sometimes came to visit during the holidays, which had happened once before during Joachim’s stay, and he said that the ladies of the institution were then very moved, the temperature rose, jealousies led to quarrels and arguments in the lying-in halls, and increased There is a rush to Dr. Krokowski’s special consultation hour… and increased rush to Dr. Krokowski’s special consultation hour… and increased rush to Dr. Krokowski’s special consultation hour…

The assistant was given his own room for his private surgeries, which, like the large examination room,the laboratory, the operating room and the X-ray studio, located in the well-lit basement of the institution building. We speak of a basement because the stone staircase leading there from the ground floor did in fact give the impression of going down to a basement – but this was almost entirely based on deception. Because, firstly, the ground floor was quite high, but secondly, the Berghof building was built as a whole, on sloping ground, on the mountain, and those “cellar” rooms looked ahead, towards the garden and the valley: circumstances, through the effect and meaning the stairs were in a sense thwarted and canceled out. Because you thought you were going down the steps from level ground, but below you were still and again on the ground level or at least only a few feet below, – an amusing impression for Hans Castorp when he accompanied his cousin, who was supposed to be weighed by the lifeguard, “down” to this sphere one afternoon. Clinical brightness and cleanliness prevailed there; everything was kept white on white, and the doors shimmered in white lacquer, including those to Dr. Krokowski’s reception room, to which the scholar’s calling card was attached with a thumbtack, and to which two steps led down from the level of the corridor, giving the room behind it a relaxed character. It was to the right of the stairs, this door, at the end of the corridor, and Hans Castorp kept a special eye on it as he walked up and down the corridor, waiting for Joachim. He also saw someone coming out, a ladyPetite with forelocks and gold earrings. She bent low, climbed the steps, and gathered up her skirt, while she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth with her other small, ringed hand, and from her stooped position she looked into emptiness with large, pale, bewildered eyes. So she hurried to the stairs with tight little steps that made her petticoat rustle, stopped suddenly as if she were remembering something, started tripping again and disappeared into the stairwell, always stooping and without taking the handkerchief from her lips.

Behind her, when the door had opened, it had been much darker than the white corridor: the clinical brightness of these lower rooms evidently did not reach there; veiled semi-light, deep twilight reigned, as Hans Castorp remarked, in Dr. Krokowski’s analytical cabinet.