During meals in the colorful dining room, young Hans Castorp was somewhat embarrassed that the grandfatherly trembling of the head remained from the walk he had undertaken on his own – especially at the table it almost always came back and then it was unavoidable and difficult to stop hide. Apart from the dignified chin rest, which could not be held permanently, he devised various means of masking the weakness – for example, he kept his head in motion as much as possible by conversing to the right and left, or he squeezed, say, when he was holding the soup spoon to the mouth, the left forearm firmly on the table to give himself posture, also posedHe probably raised his elbows during the breaks and supported his head with his hand, although in his own eyes this was a lout and could only be tolerated in free sick company. But all this was a nuisance, and it was not short of making him completely disgusted with the meals, which he otherwise knew so well to appreciate for the tension and sights they brought with them.

But it was so – and Hans Castorp knew this too well – that the embarrassing appearance with which he struggled was not only of physical origin, not only due to the local air and the effort of acclimatization, but also expressed an inner excitement and with those tensions and sights themselves.

Madame Chauchat was almost always late for dinner, and until she came Hans Castorp sat and could not keep his feet still, for he was waiting for the smashing of the glass door which inevitably accompanied her entrance, and knew that he would start and his face would feel cold, which it did regularly. At first he always tossed his head angrily and accompanied the negligent latecomer with angry eyes to her place at the “good” Russian table, probably sending her a shout of indignant disapproval in a low voice between his teeth. He refrained from doing that now, bent his head lower over the plate, probably biting his lip in the process, or turned it intentionally and artificially to the other side; because he felt as if anger no longer belonged to him,jointly responsible for the scandal and jointly responsible for it in front of the others – in short, he was ashamed, and it would have been inaccurate to say that he was ashamed of Mrs Chauchat, but quite personally he was ashamed in front of the people – what he was Incidentally, could have saved, since no one in the hall cared about Frau Chauchat’s vice or Hans Castorp’s embarrassment about it, with the exception of the teacher, Fraulein Engelhart, on his right.

The wretched creature had understood that thanks to Hans Castorp’s sensitivity to the door being thrown, a certain affective relationship had developed between the young person sitting next to the table and the Russian woman, and that the nature of such a relationship was of little importance, provided it existed at all, and finally, that his feigned indifference—and, for lack of acting practice and talent, feigned very badly—did not weaken the relationship, but rather strengthened it, signified a higher phase. Without claim or hope for her own person, Fraulein Engelhart constantly indulged in selflessly delighted speeches about Frau Chauchat – whereby the remarkable thing was that Hans Castorp recognized and saw through her inflammatory activities, if not immediately, at least in the long run , Yes,

“Pardauz!” said the old girl. “That’s her . You don’t have to look up to see who walked in. Of course, there she goes—and how charmingly she walks—just like a kitten creeping to the milk-bowl! I wish we could switch places so you can see her like thiscasually and comfortably as I can. I can understand why you don’t want to look at her all the time – God knows what she’d be thinking when she found out… Now she’s saying hello to her people… You should take a look, it is so refreshing to watch them. When she smiles and talks like this, she gets a dimple in one cheek, but not always, only when she wants to. Yes, that’s a golden child of a woman, a spoiled creature, that’s why she’s so easygoing. You have to love people like that, whether you want to or not, because if they annoy you with their nonchalance, the annoyance is just another incentive to be attached to them, it’s so happy to be angry and still have to love them. ..”

So the teacher whispered behind her hand and unheard by the others, while the downy blush on her spinster cheeks reminded her of her above-normal body temperature; and their voluptuous talk went to the marrow and blood of poor Hans Castorp. A certain lack of independence created in him the need to have third parties confirm that Madame Chauchat was a delightful woman, and the young man also wished to be encouraged from outside to indulge in feelings to which his reason and conscience offered disturbing resistance .

Incidentally, these conversations proved to be of little practical use, for Fraulein Engelhart, with the best will in the world, could say nothing more about Frau Chauchat than anyone else in the sanatorium; she did not know her, could not even boast of an acquaintance she had in common with her, and the only thing that could put her in front of Hans Castorp was thatthe fact that she was at home in Konigsberg, which is not very far from the Russian border, and knew a smattering of Russian—poor qualities in which Hans Castorp was prepared to see something like a far-reaching personal relationship with Frau Chauchat.

‘She wears no ring,’ he said, ‘no wedding ring, I see. How’s that? She’s a married woman, did you tell me?”

The teacher felt embarrassed, cornered and having to make excuses, she felt so responsible for Mrs. Chauchat Hans Castorp.

“Don’t take that too seriously,” she said. “Reliably she is married. There can be no doubt about that. The fact that she calls herself Madame is not only for the sake of greater prestige, like foreign ladies do when they are a little more mature, but we all know that she really has a husband somewhere in Russia, that’s known all over town. She has a different name from home, a Russian one and not a French one, one in -anov or -ukow, I already knew it and only forgot it again; I’ll ask about it if you like; I’m sure there are several people here who know the name. A ring? No, she doesn’t wear one, I’ve noticed that too. Dear heaven, maybe he doesn’t dress her, maybe he gives her a big hand. Or she thinks it’s bourgeois wearing a wedding ring, a smooth band like that… only the key basket is missing… no, she’s certainly too generous for that… I know that, Russian women all have something so free and generous about them. In addition, such a ring has something downright forbidding and sobering,he’s a symbol of bondage, I’d like to say, he directly gives a woman something nun-like, he turns her into the pure little flower, don’t touch me. I’m not at all surprised if that’s not what Frau Chauchat would like… Such a lovely woman, in the prime of life… She probably has neither reason nor desire to shake hands with every gentleman she’s married to to feel bondage…”

Good God, how the teacher worked hard! Hans Castorp looked at her in shock, but she met his gaze with a kind of wild embarrassment. Then they both fell silent for a while to recover. Hans Castorp ate and kept his head from shaking. Finally he said:

“And the man? Doesn’t he care about her? He never visits her up here? What is he actually?

“Official. Russian administration official, in a very remote province, Daghestan, you know, that’s far to the east beyond the Caucasus, that’s where he’s ordered. No, I told you nobody’s ever seen him up here. And she’s here for the third month already.”

“So this isn’t her first time here?”

“Oh no, the third time already. And in between she is somewhere else again, in similar places. – Conversely, she visits him occasionally, not often, once a year for a while. They live apart, one might say, and she visits him sometimes.”

“Well, since she’s ill…”

“Certainly, she is ill. But not like that . But not so seriously ill that she almost always goes to sanatoriums and fromhad to live separately from her husband. There must be more and other reasons. Here it is generally assumed that there are others. Maybe she doesn’t like it in Daghestan behind the Caucasus, such a wild, remote area, that wouldn’t be surprising in the end. But it must be a bit of the man’s fault if she doesn’t like it at all with him. He’s got a French name, but that’s why he’s a Russian official, and that’s a rough breed, believe me. I saw one of them once, he had iron-colored whiskers and a red face… They are highly corruptible, and then they all have it with the Wutki, the brandy, you know… For the sake of decency they don’t bother give something to eat, some marinated mushrooms or a piece of sturgeon, and they drink – simply in excess. That’s what they call a snack…”

“You blame everything on him,” said Hans Castorp. “But we don’t know if it’s not her fault if they don’t get along well together. You have to be fair. When I look at her like that and this bad manner with the doors thrown … I don’t think she’s an angel, please don’t take it amiss, I don’t trust her at all. But you are not impartial, you are up to your ears in prejudice in their favor…”

He did that sometimes. With a cunning that was really foreign to his nature, he made it seem as if Fraulein Engelhart’s crush on Frau Chauchat did not mean what he knew very well it really meant, but as if this crush was an independent, comical one Fact with which he, the independent Hans Castorp, thecould tease an old maid from a cool and humorous distance. And since he was sure that his accomplice would accept this brazen misrepresentation and put up with it, nothing was dared.

“Good morning!” he said. “Have you been resting? I hope you dreamed about your beautiful Minka? … No, how you’ll blush just by mentioning them! You’re infatuated with her, just don’t deny it!”

And the teacher, who was really blushing and bending low over her cup, whispered out of the left corner of her mouth:

“But no, fie, Mr. Castorp! It’s not nice of you to embarrass me with your allusions. Everyone can see that we’re after them and that you’re telling me things that make me blush…”

It was strange what the two table neighbors were doing there. Both knew that they lied twofold and threefold, that Hans Castorp only teased the teacher in order to be able to speak of Frau Chauchat, but at the same time found an unhealthy and transferred pleasure in flirting with the old girl – which in turn followed firstly for procuring reasons, then also because she had really fallen in love with Frau Chauchat to please the young man, and finally because she miserably enjoyed being teased and made red in some way by him. They both knew this about themselves and each other and also knew that everyone knew it about themselves and each other, and it was all complicated and messy. But although Hans Castorp on the whole disgusted with complicated and unclean thingsand even in this case felt disgusted by it, he nevertheless continued to splash about in the gloomy element, reassuring himself by telling himself that he was only up here on a visit and would soon be leaving again. With feigned objectivity, he expertly assessed the “lazy” woman’s appearance, noting that seen from the front she looked decidedly younger and prettier than in profile, that her eyes were too wide apart and her posture left much to be desired, although her arms made up for it be beautiful and “softly formed”. And as he said this, he tried to hide the trembling of his head, not only realizing that the teacher noticed his futile effort, but also noticed with the greatest reluctance that she herself was also shaking her head. Also, it had been nothing but politics and unnatural cleverness that he had called Frau Chauchat “beautiful Minka”; because then he could continue to ask:

“I say ‘Minka’, but what’s her real name? I mean by first name. As infatuated as you undoubtedly are, you must know her first name.”

The teacher thought.

“Wait, I know him,” she said. “I knew him. Isn’t her name Tatjana? No, it wasn’t, and neither was Natascha. Natasha Chauchat? No, that’s not what I heard. Hold on, I’ve got it! Her name is Avdotya. Or maybe there was something in that character. Because Katjenka or Ninotschka is definitely not her name. It has truly slipped my mind. But I can easily find out if you care.”

She really knew the name the next day. She said it at lunch when the glass door slammed shut. Mrs. Chauchat’s name was Clawdia.

Hans Castorp didn’t understand at first. He had the name repeated and spelled before he understood it. Then he repeated it several times, looking across at Mrs. Chauchat with red-veined eyes and, as it were, trying it on her.

“Clawdia,” he said, “yes, that’s her name, it’s quite true.” He made no secret of his delight at the intimate knowledge and now only spoke of “Clawdia” when he meant Mrs. Chauchat. “Your Clawdia rolls bread balls, I just saw that. It’s not fine.” “It depends on who is doing it,” the teacher replied. “Clawdia suits it.”

Yes, the meals in the hall with the seven tables had the greatest attraction for Hans Castorp. He regretted it when one of them ended, but his consolation was that very soon, in two or two and a half hours, he would be sitting here again, and when he sat here again it was as if he had never got up. What was in between? Nothing. A short walk to the watercourse or the English Quarter, a little rest in your chair. This was no serious interruption, no obstacle difficult to take. Something else if work, any worries and troubles had preceded you, which in the mind would not have been easy to overlook, to pass over. However, this was not the case in the cleverly and happily regulated life of the “Berghof”. When Hans Castorp got up from a meal together, he could immediately look forward to the next one,“Rejoicing” was the right word for the kind of anticipation with which he looked forward to his new association with the ailing Mrs. Clawdia Chauchat, and not too easy, cheerful, simple-minded, and ordinary. Perhaps the reader is inclined to consider only such expressions, viz. merry and ordinary, as appropriate and permissible in relation to Hans Castorp’s person and inner life; but we recall that as a young man of sanity and conscience he could not simply “rejoice” in the sight and nearness of Mrs. Chauchat, and, as we must know, we find that he used that word when it was offered him, would have shrugged it off.

Yes, he became snooty about certain means of expression—that is a detail that deserves to be noted. He walked about with dry heat on his cheeks and sang to himself, sang to himself, for his condition was musical and sensitive. He hummed a ditty that he had once heard from a small soprano voice, who knows where and when, at a party or at a charity concert, and now found it in himself—a gentle nonsense that began:

“How wondrous touches me

Often a word from you”

and he was about to add:

“That came from your lip

And to my heart!” –

when he suddenly shrugged his shoulders, said “ridiculous” and dismissed the tender little song as tasteless and silly sensitive and dismissed it – dismissed it with a certain melancholy and severity. In such an intimate little songAny young man who had “given his heart”, as they say, legitimately, peacefully, and with good prospects to some healthy gosling down there in the lowlands, might be satisfied and pleased, and now he was giving himself to his allowed, promising, reasonable, and im Basically left to happy sensations. For him and his relationship with Madame Chauchat – the word “relationship” comes into its own, we reject responsibility for it – such a little poem was definitely not appropriate; in his lounger he felt compelled to make the aesthetic judgment “silly!” and broke off in the middle by wrinkling his nose, although he could not think of anything more appropriate to do so.

One thing, however, gave him satisfaction when he lay and paid attention to his heart, his physical heart, which was beating quickly and audibly in the silence – the prescribed house rules silence that prevailed over the entire “Berghof” during the main and sleep rest cure. It was beating persistently and urgently, his heart, as it had almost constantly since he was up here; but recently Hans Castorp took less offense than in the first days. One could no longer say that it was knocking on one’s own hand, for no reason and without any connection with one’s soul. Such a connection existed or was at least not difficult to establish; a justifying emotional emotion could be casually added to the exalted physical activity. Hans Castorp only had to think of Frau Chauchat – and he thought of her –