No, he was by no means settled yet, neither as far as the knowledge of local life in all its peculiarities was concerned – a knowledge that he could not possibly acquire in so few days and, as he said to himself (and also expressed it to Joachim), himself would unfortunately not be able to win in three weeks; also with regard to the adaptation of his organism to the very peculiar atmospheric conditions of “those up here”, because this adaptation became sour for him, extremely sour, yes, as it seemed to him, it didn’t want to happen at all.

The normal day was clearly structured and carefully organized, you quickly got into the rut and gained fluency when you fit into your gear. However, over the course of the week and larger units of time, it was subject to certain regular variations, which only appeared gradually, one for the first time after the other had already been repeated; And as far as the everyday individual appearance of things and faces was concerned, Hans Castorp still had to learn at every step to notice more precisely what was seen superficially and to take in new things with youthful receptivity.

Those bulbous vessels with short necks, for example, that stood in the corridors in front of individual doors and on theimmediately on the evening of his arrival his eye fell, contained oxygen, – Joachim explained it to him when asked. Pure oxygen was in it, at six francs the balloon, and the invigorating gas was supplied to the dying for the purpose of a last cheering and sustaining of their strength – they slurped it through a hose. Because behind the doors, in front of which such balloons were standing, lay dying people or ” moribundi “, as Hofrat Behrens said when Hans Castorp met him once on the first floor – the Hofrat came rowing down the corridor in a white coat and with blue cheeks, and they walked up the stairs together.

“Well, you innocent bystander,” said Behrens. “What are you doing, do we find mercy in front of your scrutinizing eyes? Honor us, honor us. Yes, our summer season has it all, it’s not from bad parents. I also paid a little to tease her a little. But it’s a pity that you don’t want to spend the winter with us – I hear you only want to stay eight weeks? Oh, three? But that’s a flying visit, it’s not worth taking off; whatever you think. But it’s a pity that you’re not going through the winter, because whatever the hotevoleh is,” he said with a jokingly impossible pronunciation, “the international hotevoleh down there in Platz only comes in winter, and you’d have to see, you would do something for your education. to the balls when the fellows jump on their footboards like that. And then the ladies, goodness gracious, the ladies! Colorful as the birds of paradise, I tell you, and mighty gallant … But now I have to go to my moribundus,” he said, “to twenty-sevenhere. Final stage, you know. Down the middle. Yesterday and today he pinched five dozen Oxygen fiascos, the gourmand. But he’ll probably go ad penates by noon . Well, dear Reuter,” he said as he entered, “how about we break someone’s neck…” His words were lost behind the door, which he pulled shut. But for a moment Hans Castorp had seen on the pillow at the back of the room the waxy profile of a young man with a thin goatee who had slowly rolled his very large eyeballs towards the door.

It was the first moribundus that Hans Castorp saw in his life, because both his parents and his grandfather had died behind his back, so to speak. How dignified the young man’s head had been lying on the pillow with his beard pushed up! How significant the look in his oversized eyes had been as he slowly turned them towards the door! Hans Castorp, still engrossed in the fleeting sight, tried involuntarily to make eyes as large, significant and slow as the moribundus as he walked on towards the stairs, and with those eyes he looked at a lady who was coming out of a door behind him stepped on and overtook him at the top of the stairs. He didn’t recognize at first that it was Madame Chauchat. She smiled softly at the eyes he made

He made almost no acquaintances in those first days and not for a long time later either. The agenda wasnot favorable to the whole; Hans Castorp was also of a reserved nature, moreover felt like a guest and “indifferent spectator” up here, as Hofrat Behrens had said, and was content with Joachim’s conversation and company for the most part. The nurse in the corridor, of course, craned her neck towards them until Joachim, who had sometimes given her little chats in the past, introduced his cousin to her. With the pince-nez strap behind her ear, she spoke not only delicately, but downright tormented, and on closer inspection gave the impression that her mind had suffered from the torture of boredom. It was very difficult to get away from her, as she displayed a morbid fear before the end of the conversation, and as soon as the young people made an effort to move on, clinging to her with hasty words and looks, also a desperate smile, so that out of pity they stayed with her. She talked at length about her papa, who was a lawyer, and her cousin, who was a doctor – apparently to put herself in a favorable light and to show her educated background. As for her foster child there behind the door, he was the son of a Coburg doll manufacturer, whose name was Rotbein, and recently it had gotten on young Fritz’s gut. That was hard for everyone involved, as the gentlemen could well imagine; especially when you come from an academic family and have the sensitivity of the higher classes, it’s hard. And you shouldn’t turn your back… Recently, what did the gentlemen think,worried, and find the patient sitting in his bed, in front of him a glass of thick, dark beer, a salami sausage, a coarse piece of black bread and a pickle! His family would have sent him all these local delicacies to strengthen him. But the next day he was of course more dead than alive. He himself accelerates his end. But that would only mean salvation for him, not for her as well – by the way, her name was Sister Berta, actually Alfreda Schildknecht – because then she would come to see another patient, in a more or less advanced stage, here or in one other sanatorium, that is the perspective that opens up for her, and another does not open up.

Yes, said Hans Castorp, her job is certainly difficult, but it’s also satisfying, he should think.

Certainly, she answered, it was satisfying—satisfying, but very difficult.

Well, all the best for Herr Rotbein. And the cousins ​​wanted to go.

But then she clung to them with words and looks, and it was so pitiful to see her struggling to tie the young people a little longer that it would have been cruel not to give her more respite.

“He’s sleeping!” she said. “He doesn’t need me. So I went out into the corridor for a few short minutes…” And she began to complain about Hofrat Behrens and the tone in which he dealt with her, which was all too informal to correspond to her background. By far she gave Dr. Krokowski’s preference—she called him soulful. Then she came back to her dad and her cousin. your braingave nothing more. In vain she struggled to tie the cousins ​​up a little longer, suddenly raising her voice and almost screaming when they wanted to leave – they finally slipped out of her and went. But the nurse continued to watch them for a while with her upper body bent and a sucking gaze, as if she wanted to draw her eyes back to her. Then a sigh escaped her chest, and she returned to her charge’s room.

Otherwise, Hans Castorp only became acquainted with the black-pale lady, the Mexican woman he had seen in the garden and the “ Tous les deux” was called. It really so happened that he, too, heard from her lips the sad formula which had become her nickname; but since he had prepared himself, he maintained good composure and afterwards could be content with himself. The cousins ​​met them in front of the main portal as they set out for the prescribed morning walk after their first breakfast. Wrapped in a black cashmere shawl, with bent knees and long, restlessly wandering steps, she walked there, and against the black veil that was wrapped around her silver-streaked hair and tied under her chin, her aging face shimmered dull white with the large, drawn face mouth. Joachim, without his hat as usual, greeted her with a bow, and she slowly thanked her, while the cross lines in her narrow forehead deepened as she looked. She stopped, noticing a new face, and nodding her head softly, awaiting the young people’s approach; for evidently she considered it necessary to hear whether the stranger knew of her fate,and to receive his statement on it. Joachim introduced his cousin. She extended her hand to the guest from inside the mantilla, a skinny, yellowish, highly veined, ringed hand, and continued to look at him, nodding. Then it came:

” Tous les dé, monsieur ,” she said. ” Tous les de vous savez… “

” Je le sais, madame ,” answered Hans Castorp subdued. ” Et je le regrette beaucoup. “

The sagging sacks of skin under her jet-black eyes were larger and heavier than any human had ever seen. A faint, withered scent emanated from her. His heart was gentle and serious.

” Merci ,” she said in a rattling pronunciation oddly suited to the brokenness of her nature, and one corner of her large mouth hung tragically low. Then she drew her hand back under her mantilla, bowed her head, and began walking again. But Hans Castorp said as he walked on:

“You see, it didn’t bother me, I dealt with her quite well. I get along with people like that quite well, I think, I know how to deal with them by nature – don’t you think so? I even think I get along better with sad people than with happy ones, God knows why, maybe because I’m an orphan and lost my parents so early, but when the people are serious and sad and death is involved, that doesn’t really depress me and doesn’t make me embarrassed, but I feel in my element and in any case better than when things are so brisk, thatsuits me less. The other day I thought: It’s just silly for the ladies here to be so terrified of death and everything that has to do with it that they have to be anxiously protected from it and brought the Viatikum when they’re eating. No, ugh, that’s silly. Don’t you like to see a coffin? I’d love to see one. I think a coffin is an almost beautiful piece of furniture even when it’s empty, but when someone’s in it it’s directly celebratory to me. There’s something edifying about funerals—I’ve sometimes thought that if you want to edify yourself a little, you should go to a funeral instead of going to church. People wear good black stuff and take off their hats and look at the coffin and keep themselves solemn and reverent, and nobody’s allowed to make silly jokes like the rest of life. I like that very much when they are finally a little devout. I’ve sometimes wondered if I shouldn’t have been a pastor – in a way I don’t think that would have suited me badly… I hope I didn’t make a mistake in French in what I said?”

“No,” said Joachim. ” Je le regrette beaucoup was quite right so far.”