He didn’t know how long that lasted. When the time came, the gong sounded. But it didn’t immediately call for the meal, it was just a reminder to get ready, as Hans Castorp knew, and he stayed there until the metallic roar grew louder and went away a second time. When Joachim came across the room to fetch him, Hans Castorp wanted to change, but now Joachim wouldn’t allow it anymore. He hated and despised unpunctuality. How do you want to get ahead and get well in order to be able to work, he said, when you’re too weak to keep to mealtimes. Of course he was right, and Hans Castorp could only point out that he wasn’t ill, but that he was extremely sleepy. He just washed his hands quickly; then they went down into the hall,
Guests streamed in through both entrances. Also through the patio doors that were open over there, they came,and soon they were all sitting at the seven tables as if they had never got up from them. At least that was Hans Castorp’s impression – a purely dreamy and irrational impression, of course, which his foggy head could not resist for a moment and which he even found a certain pleasure in; for several times in the course of the meal he tried to call him back, with the result that he was completely deceived. The lively old lady spoke again in her slurred speech to Dr. Cauliflower listening to her with a worried expression. Her skinny grandniece finally ate something other than yoghurt, namely the creamy crème d’orge, which the hall maids had served on plates; but she only took a few spoonfuls of it and then left them. Pretty Marusya stuffed her handkerchief, which oozed orange perfume, into her mouth to stifle her giggles. Miss Robinson read the same plump letters she had read this morning. Apparently she couldn’t speak a word of German and didn’t want to be able to either. Joachim, in a gallant manner, said something to her in English about the weather, to which she chewed in monosyllables, before returning to silence. As for Frau Stoehr in her Scottish woolen blouse, she had been examined this morning and reported it, primping herself in an uneducated manner and pulling her upper lip back from her buck teeth. At the top right, she complained, she had a noise Besides, it still sounds very short under the left armpit, and “the old man” said she had to stay for five months. In her ignorance she called Hofrat Behrens “the old man”. Incidentally, she was outraged that “the old man” didn’t report todaysit at her table. According to the “tourne” (she probably meant “rotus”), it was their turn at noon today, while “the old man” was already sitting at the next table on the left – (Holy Councilor Behrens was actually sitting there and folded his huge hands in front of his plate). But of course, that’s where fat Frau Salomon from Brussels has her place, who comes to dinner every weekday in a low-cut dress, and “the old man” obviously likes that, although she, Frau Stöhr, couldn’t understand it, because he saw it every time he was examined Yes, as much as you want from Ms. Salomon. Later she related in an agitated whisper that yesterday evening the light had been put out in the upper shared lounge – namely, that which is on the roof – for purposes which Frau Stöhr described as “transparent”. “The old man” noticed it and ranted, that it could be heard throughout the institution. But of course he did not find the culprit again, while one does not need to have studied at the university to guess that it was of course this Captain Miklosich from Bucharest, for whom it could never be dark enough in the company of ladies – a man without any education at all, although he wears a corset, and by his nature simply a beast of prey – yes, a beast of prey, repeated Frau Stöhr in a choked voice, while sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The village and square knew what kind of relations Consul General Wurmbrand from Vienna had with him – one could hardly tell while one does not need to have studied at the university to guess that it was of course this Captain Miklosich from Bucharest, for whom it could never be too dark in the company of women – a man without any education whatsoever, although he was a I wear a corset, and by nature I’m just a beast of prey – yes, a beast of prey, repeated Frau Stohr in a choked voice, while sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The village and square knew what kind of relations Consul General Wurmbrand from Vienna had with him – one could hardly tell while one does not need to have studied at the university to guess that it was of course this Captain Miklosich from Bucharest, for whom it could never be too dark in the company of women – a man without any education whatsoever, although he was a I wear a corset, and by nature I’m just a beast of prey – yes, a beast of prey, repeated Frau Stohr in a choked voice, while sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The village and square knew what kind of relations Consul General Wurmbrand from Vienna had with him – one could hardly tell and by its nature simply a beast of prey – yes, a beast of prey, repeated Frau Stohr in a choked voice, while sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The village and square knew what kind of relations Consul General Wurmbrand from Vienna had with him – one could hardly tell and by its nature simply a beast of prey – yes, a beast of prey, repeated Frau Stohr in a choked voice, while sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The village and square knew what kind of relations Consul General Wurmbrand from Vienna had with him – one could hardly telltalk about mysterious relationships. Because it’s not enough that the captain sometimes comes to the Consul General’s room in the morning when she’s still in bed, whereupon he attends to her toileting,but last Tuesday he only left Wurmbrand’s room at four o’clock in the morning – the nurse of young Franz at number nineteen, whose pneumothorax had recently failed, struck him herself and missed the door she was looking for out of shame, so that she suddenly saw herself in the room of the public prosecutor Paravant from Dortmund … Finally, Mrs. Stöhr spent a long time talking about a “cosmic institution” that is down in the village, and where she buys her dental water – Joachim stared down on his plate…
The luncheon was both expertly prepared and plentiful in the highest degree. Including the nourishing soup, it consisted of no less than six courses. The fish was followed by a solid meat dish with side dishes, then a special vegetable platter, then roast poultry, a pastry that was just as tasty as last night’s, and finally cheese and fruit. Each bowl was served twice – and not in vain. They filled the plates and ate at the seven tables – a lion’s appetite reigned in the vault, a ravenous appetite which would have been a pleasure to watch had it not at the same time seemed in some way uncanny, even abominable. Not only did the lively ones display it, who chattered and threw bread balls at one another, no, also the quiet and gloomy ones, who put their heads in their hands and stared during the breaks. A teenage boy at the next table on the left, a schoolboy his years old, with sleeves that were too short and thick, round glasses, cut everything he piled up on the plate in advance into a mush and muddle; then he bent over it and slung,occasionally putting his serviette behind his glasses to wipe his eyes – one did not know what was there to dry, whether it was sweat or tears.
Two incidents occurred during the great meal and caught Hans Castorp’s attention as far as his health would permit. First, the glass door slammed shut again—it was at the fish. Hans Castorp twitched bitterly and then said to himself in angry zeal that this time he absolutely had to find the culprit. He didn’t just think it, he said it with his lips, he was that serious. I have to know it! he whispered with exaggerated passion, so that both Miss Robinson and the teacher looked at him in astonishment. And as he did so, he turned his whole upper body to the left and opened his blood-filled eyes.
It was a lady walking through the hall, a woman, probably a young girl, only medium height, in a white sweater and colored skirt, with reddish-blond hair that she wore in a simple braid around her head. Hans Castorp saw little of her profile, almost nothing at all. She walked without a sound, which was a strange contrast to the noise of her entrance, walked strangely slowly and with her head pushed forward to the extreme table on the left, which was perpendicular to the patio door, namely the “Good Russian Table”, whereby she put one hand in the pocket of the the woolen jacket that was lying close by, but led the other to the back of her head, supporting and arranging her hair. Hans Castorp looked at that hand – he had a great deal of sense and critical attention to hands and was accustomed to looking at that part of the body first when making new acquaintances, to direct his attention. She wasn’t particularly ladylike, the hand holding her hair not socultivated and ennobled, as women’s hands used to be in young Hans Castorp’s social sphere. Rather broad and short-fingered, she had something primitive and childlike, something of a schoolgirl’s hand; her nails obviously knew nothing about manicures, they were trimmed badly and properly, also like a schoolgirl’s, and the skin on their sides seemed a little rough, almost as if the little vice of finger-biting was cultivated here. Incidentally, Hans Castorp recognized this more vaguely than he actually saw it – the distance was too great. With a nod of her head, the latecomer greeted her companions at the table, and by sitting down, on the inside of the table, with her back against the hall, to the side of Dr. Krokowskis, who presided there, applied them,
Of course, a woman! thought Hans Castorp, and again he murmured it to himself so that the teacher, Fraulein Engelhart, understood what he was saying. The needy spinster smiled, touched.
“This is Madame Chauchat,” she said. “She’s so easygoing. A lovely woman.” And at the same time the downy blush on Fraulein Engelhart’s cheeks increased by a shade – which, by the way, was always the case as soon as she opened her mouth.
“French?” asked Hans Castorp sternly.
“No, she’s Russian,” said Engelhart. “Maybe it isthe man is French or of French descent, I don’t know for sure.”
Was that the one over there? Hans Castorp asked, still irritated, and pointed to a gentleman with slouched shoulders at the Good Russian Table.
Oh no, he’s not here, replied the teacher. He hadn’t been here at all, was completely unknown here.
“You should close the door properly!” said Hans Castorp. “She always drops them. That’s a bad manner.”
And since the teacher accepted the reprimand, smiling humbly, as if she herself were to blame, Madame Chauchat was no longer mentioned. –
The second occurrence was that Dr. Cauliflower temporarily left the hall – that was all. Suddenly the slightly disgusted expression on his face increased, more worried than usual he looked at one point, then with a modest movement pushed back his chair and went out. Here, however, Frau Stohr’s great ignorance was shown in the fullest light, for probably out of mean satisfaction at the fact that she was less ill than Cauliflower, she accompanied his departure with half-pitying, half-contemptuous comments. she said. “He’ll soon be out of his last hole. Again he has to talk to the Blue Heinrich.” Completely without effort, with a stubborn, ignorant expression, she brought the grotesque description “Blue Heinrich” over her lips, and Hans Castorp felt a mixture of horror and laughter when she said it. By the way, Dr. Cauliflower returned after a few minutes in the same humble attitude in whichafter he had gone out, sat down again and continued to eat. He, too, ate a great deal, twice of each dish, silently and with a worried, closed expression.
Then lunch was over: thanks to a skilful waiter – for the dwarf in particular was a strangely swift-footed creature – it had lasted only a good hour. Hans Castorp, breathing heavily and not quite knowing how he had gotten up, lay again on the excellent chair in his balcony box, for after the meal there was a rest cure until tea—in fact, the most important of the day and to be strictly observed. Between the opaque glass walls that separated him from Joachim on the one hand and the Russian couple on the other, he lay dozing, heart pounding, breathing through his mouth. When he used his handkerchief he found it reddened with blood, but he had not the strength to worry about it, although he was somewhat self-conscious and a little naturally inclined to the hypochondriac. Again he had lit a Maria Mancini and this time he finished smoking it, let it taste as usual. Dizzy, anxious, and dreamy, he reflected on how strange it was for him up here. Two or three times his breast was shaken with inner laughter at the dreadful term Frau Stoehr had used in her ignorance.
