Hans Castorp’s week here ran from Tuesday to Tuesday, because he had arrived on a Tuesday. It had been a few days since he had settled his second weekly bill in the office – the modest weekly bill of around 160 francs, modest and reasonable in his opinion, even if one does not take into account the unaffordability of the stay here, precisely because of its unaffordability Stop brought, not even certain performances that would have been predictable if you had wanted howfor example the fortnightly spa music and the lectures by Dr. Krokowskis, but alone and exclusively the actual hospitality and inn-like service, the comfortable lodging, the five overwhelming meals.

“It’s not much, it’s rather cheap, you can’t complain that you’re being overwhelmed up here,” said the visitor to the inmate. “So you need around 650 francs a month for accommodation and food, and that includes medical treatment. Good. Suppose you spend another thirty francs on tips a month if you’re decent and value friendly faces. That’s 680 francs. Good. You will tell me that there are still expenses and sports. You have expenses for drinks, for cosmetics, for cigars, you go on an excursion, a car ride if you want, and now and then there is a shoemaker’s or tailor’s bill. Good, but with all that, you still can’t bring in a thousand francs a month with the best will in the world! Not eight hundred marks yet! That’s not even 10,000 marks a year. It is definitely not more. That’s what you live on.”

“Mental arithmetic is commendable,” said Joachim. “I didn’t know you were so adept at it. And I think it’s generous of you to set up the annual calculation right away, you’ve definitely learned something up here. By the way, you are overestimating. I don’t smoke cigars, and I hope I don’t have to have my suits made here either, thank you!”

“So even too high,” said Hans Castorp, somewhat confused. But how it came about that he had billed his cousin for cigars and new suits,– as far as his nimble mental arithmetic was concerned, it was nothing more than deceit and deception about his natural gifts. For as in all plays, he was rather slow and lacking in fire, and his quick overview in this case was not an impromptu achievement, but was based on preparation, and written one at thatPreparation, namely, when Hans Castorp got up from his excellent deck chair one evening during the rest cure (because he did lie down in the evening after all, since everyone was doing it) and, following a sudden idea, left the room to take paper and pencil to do the arithmetic pick up. With that he had established that his cousin, or rather that one needs all in all 12,000 francs a year here and, jokingly, made it clear to himself that he personally was more than up to the life up here economically, since he as a man of 18-19000 francs a year.

So his second week’s bill had been settled three days ago against thanks and receipt, which means that he was in the middle of the third and, according to plan, last week of his stay up here. Next Sunday he would experience one of the fortnightly recurring spa concerts here and on Monday one of the fortnightly recurring lectures by Dr. Attending the Krokowskis, he said to himself and to his cousin; but on Tuesday or Wednesday he would travel and leave Joachim alone here again, poor Joachim, to whom Radamanth had dictated who knows how many more months, and whose soft, black eyes veiled melancholy every timethere was talk of Hans Castorp’s rapidly approaching departure. Yes, good God, where had that holiday season gone! Missed out, fled, hastened—one really couldn’t quite say how. After all, it had been twenty-one days that they should have spent together, a long series, not easy to overlook at the beginning. And now all of a sudden only three or four small days were left of it, a little considerable remainder, somewhat weighed down by the two periodic modifications of the normal day, but already filled with thoughts of packing and saying goodbye. Three weeks was as good as nothing up here – they had all told him so at once. The smallest unit of time here was the month, Settembrini had said, and since Hans Castorp’s stay was less than that size, so he was nothing of a stay and a flying visit, as Hofrat Behrens had put it. Was it perhaps due to the increased general burn that time passed so quickly here? Such rapid pace of life was a consolation for Joachim in view of the five months that still lay ahead of him, if five was the end of it. But during those three weeks they should have been a little more careful of the time, as was done during the measuring, when the prescribed seven minutes became such a significant period of time… Hans Castorp felt heartfelt pity for his cousin, who was bereaved could be read in the eyes of the imminent loss of the human companion – indeed felt the deepest pity for him when he considered thatand was active in the service of transport engineering that brought peoples together: an almost burning pity, painful for the chest at certain moments and, in short, so lively that at times he seriously doubted whether he would be able to get over himself and leave Joachim up here alone. That’s how much pity burned him sometimes, and that was probably the reason why he himself, of his own accord, spoke less and less about his departure: it was Joachim who brought up the conversation from time to time; As we said, Hans Castorp, out of natural tact and delicacy, seemed unwilling to think about it until the last moment.

“Now we can at least hope,” said Joachim, “that you have recovered with us and that you will feel refreshed when you come downstairs.”

“Yes, so I’ll say hello to everyone,” replied Hans Castorp, “and tell you that you’ll be back in five months at the latest. recovered? You mean if Irecovered in these few days? I will accept that. A certain recovery must have taken place in the end, even in such a short time. Admittedly, the impressions up here were so new, new in every respect, very stimulating, but also exhausting for the mind and body, I don’t have the feeling that I’ve finished with them and that I haven’t acclimatized, what can I do would be the precondition of all recovery. Thank God Maria is the old one, a few days ago I got a taste for her again. But from time to time my handkerchief still blushes when I use it and the damn heat in my face along with the senseless pounding heart I get too, ehit seems until the end can not get rid of. No, no, you can’t speak well of acclimatization with me, how should you even after such a short time. It took longer to acclimatize here and to cope with the impressions, and then the recovery could begin and the protein build-up. A pity. I say ‘a pity’ because it was definitely wrong that I didn’t reserve more time for this stay – after all, it would have been available. So I feel as if I’ll have to recover from my rest at home in the lowlands and sleep for three weeks, I sometimes feel so exhausted. And now, annoyingly enough, this catarrh is added…”

It seemed that Hans Castorp was about to return to the lowlands with a first-rate cold. He had caught a cold, probably during the rest-cure, in fact, to conjecture again, in the evening rest-cure, which he had been taking part in for about a week, despite the wet and cold weather, which seemed to be no better before he left. But he had learned that it was not recognized as bad; the notion of bad weather was not at all right up here, one feared no weather, one hardly paid any attention to it, and with the soft docility of youth, their willingness to adapt to the thoughts and customs of the environment into which they find themselves , Hans Castorp had begun to embrace this indifference. When it poured like cats and dogs, one shouldn’t think that the air was less dry because of it. It really wasn’t, because you still had that nameHead from it, as if from an overheated room, or as if one had drunk a lot of wine. But as far as the cold was concerned, which was serious, it would have made little sense to flee into the room from her; for since it wasn’t snowing, there was no heating, and sitting in the room was by no means more comfortable than lying in the balcony box, dressed in a winter jacket and wrapped up in his two good camel’s hair blankets. On the contrary and vice versa: this latter was incomparably more comfortable, judged simply, it was the most appealing situation in life that Hans Castorp could ever remember having experienced – a judgment in which he was undeterred by the fact that some writer and Carbonaro called it the “horizontal” life situation with a spiteful under- and secondary meaning. Especially in the evening he found her appealing,Ocean steamships ” – in the admittedly badly clasped, reddened hands, looking through the arches of the loggia over the darkening valley, adorned with scattered lights here, densely gathering there, from which music sounded almost every evening and for at least an hour, pleasant muted, familiarly melodic sounds: they were fragments of opera, pieces from “Carmen”, “Troubadour” or “Der Freischütz”, then well-constructed, brisk waltzes, marches, in which one turned one’s head proudly back and forth, and lively mazurkas. Mazurka? Her real name was Marusja, the one with the little ruby, and in the neighboring box,behind the thick frosted glass wall lay Joachim – now and then Hans Castorp exchanged a cautious word with him, with full consideration for the other horizontals. Joachim had it just as well in his box as Hans Castorp, even if he was unmusical and did not know how to enjoy the evening concerts so much. pity for him; he was probably reading his Russian grammar instead. But Hans Castorp left “ Ocean steamships’ lying on the coverlet and listened to the music with heartfelt sympathy, looked complacently into the transparent depths of its texture and felt such intense pleasure in a melodic inspiration full of character and atmosphere that he only occasionally recalled Settembrini’s remarks about the music with hostility , remarks as annoying as the one about the music being politically suspect – which in fact was not much better than grandfather Giuseppe’s phrase about the July revolution and the six days of the creation of the world…

So Joachim was not so keen on musical enjoyment, and he was also alien to the spicy entertainment of smoking; but otherwise he lay just as well in his box, safe and at peace. The day was over, for this time everything was over, one was sure that nothing more would happen today, no more shocks would occur, no more demands would be placed on the heart muscles. At the same time, however, one was certain that tomorrow , with all the probability that resulted from the narrowness, favorability, and regularity of the circumstances, all this would happen again and start all over again; and this double safety and security was extremely comfortable, it created together with the music and the rediscovered spiceMarias the evening rest cure for Hans Castorp to a truly happy life situation.

But none of that had prevented the trainee and soft newcomer from catching a bad cold during the rest cure (or however and wherever). A severe runny nose seemed to be coming, it was in his frontal sinus and was squeezing, the uvula in his throat was sore and sore, his air did not go through the channel intended for this purpose as it usually does, but felt cold, obstructed and constantly aroused coughing spasms through; overnight his voice had taken on the timbre of a dull bass, as if burned by strong drink, and according to his testimony he had not slept a wink that very night, since a suffocating dryness in his throat had made him jump from his pillow time and time again.

“It’s extremely annoying,” said Joachim, “and almost embarrassing. Colds, you must know, are not reçus here, they are denied, they don’t officially occur because of the extreme dryness of the air, and as a patient you’d get sick to Behrens if you wanted to call in a cold. But it’s different with you, you have the right to do so in the end. It would be good if we could still cut off the catarrh, practices are known in the lowlands, but here – I doubt whether people will be interested enough here. You shouldn’t get sick here, nobody cares. That’s an old lesson, you’ll learn it now at last. When I arrived there was a lady here who was holding her ear all week and moaning about the pain, and finally Behrens looked at it. ‘You can rest easy,’ he says, ‘it’s not tubercular.’ That was it. Yes,we must see what can be done. I’ll tell the lifeguard in the morning when he comes to see me. That’s the official channel, and he’ll pass it on, so maybe something will happen for you.”

So Joachim; and the official channels proved their worth. As soon as Hans Castorp returned to his room from the morning motion on Friday, there was a knock at his door, and he became personally acquainted with Fraulein von Mylendonk, or “Frau Oberin”, as she was called – until now he had Apparently busy people could only be seen from afar as she came out of a sick room and crossed the corridor to go into an opposite one, or saw her glimpse into the dining room and heard her squeaky voice. So now her visit was aimed at him himself; drawn in by his catarrh, she knocked bony hard and briefly on his room door and entered almost before he said come in, leaning back on the threshold once more to make sure of the room number.

“Forty-three,” she squeaked undiminished. “It is true. Goodness, on me dit, que vous avez pris froid , I hear, you have caught a cold , Wy, kaschetsja, prostudilisj , I hear you have caught a cold? How should I talk to you? German, I see. Ah, the visit from young Ziemßen, I see. I have to go to the operating room. There’s a guy getting chloroformed and he ate bean salad. If you don’t have your eyes everywhere… And you, goodness gracious, claim to have caught a cold here?”

Hans Castorp was amazed by this way of speaking by an old noble lady. As she spoke, she went over her ownwords away, turning her head restlessly, in a rolling, looping motion, nose up in search, like caged beasts do, and waving her freckled right hand, slightly closed and thumbs up, in front of her wrist as if willing they say, “Quick, quick, quick! Don’t listen to what I say, but talk for yourself so that I can get away!’ She was in her forties, of stunted stature, without features, dressed in a white, belted, clinical apron dress, on the breast of which lay a garnet cross. Sparse reddish hair protruded from under her nurse’s cap, her water-blue, inflamed eyes, one of which was filled with a grain of stye that was very advanced in development, were unsteady in their gaze, her nose was raised, her mouth was frog-like, also with a crooked lower lip, which she shoveled as she spoke. Meanwhile Hans Castorp looked at her with all the modest, tolerant and trusting philanthropy that was innate in him.

“What kind of cold is that, eh?” asked the matron again, trying to make her eyes penetrating, but she couldn’t because they were wandering. “We don’t like colds like that. Do you often catch colds? Didn’t your cousin often catch colds too? How old are you? Twenty four? Age has it all. And now you come up here with a cold? We shouldn’t be talking about ‘cold’ here, dear fellow, that’s such a gimmick from below. (The word “frills” sounded all loathsome and adventurous on her lips, the way she scooped it out with her lower lip.) You havethe most wonderful catarrh of the respiratory tract, I admit, you can see it in your eyes – (And again she made the strange attempt to look penetratingly into his eyes, without really succeeding.) But catarrhs ​​don’t come from the cold, but they come from an infection that one was receptive to and the only question is whether this is an innocent infection or a less innocent one, everything else is bells and whistles. (Again the dreadful “bells and whistles”!) It’s possible that your receptiveness leans more toward the harmless,’ she said, looking at him with her advanced stye, he didn’t know how. “Here you have a harmless antiseptic. Might do you some good.” And from the black leather bag that hung on her belt, she produced a package which she put on the table. It was formamine. “By the way, you look excited; as if you have heat.” And she kept gazing into his face, but always with slightly sideways eyes. “Have you measured yourself?”

He said no.

“Why not?” she asked, letting her lower lip stick out at an angle…

He fell silent. The good guy was still so young, he still had the silence of the schoolboy who stands in the bank, knows nothing and is silent.

“Don’t you ever compete?”

“Yes, madam. When I have a fever.”

“God, you measure yourself primarily to see if you have a fever. And now you don’t think you have one?”

“I’m not sure, madam; I can’t quite tell the difference. I’ve been a bit hot and chilly since I got here.”

“Aha. And where is your thermometer?”

“I don’t have any with me, madam. Why, I’m only here to visit, I’m healthy.”

“Bells and whistles! Did you call me because you are healthy?”

“No,” he laughed politely, “but because I’m a little -“

“- Got a cold. We’ve had colds like this before. Here!” she said, rummaging in her bag again to bring out two oblong leather cases, one black and one red, which she also placed on the table. “This one costs three francs fifty and this one five francs. Of course, it’s better to drive with the five. It’s a lifesaver if you handle it properly.”

Smiling, he took the red case from the table and opened it. The glass device lay like a piece of jewellery, embedded in the deepening of the red velvet upholstery, which had been cut out exactly according to its figure. The whole degrees were marked with red lines, the tenths of degrees with black lines. The figures were red, the lower, tapered part filled with mercury with a mirror-like shine. The column was deep and cool, well below the normal level of animal warmth.

Hans Castorp knew what he owed himself and his reputation.

“I’ll take this one,” he said, not even paying attention to the other. “This one for five. May I give you immediately…”

“Deal!” squeaked the matron. “Just don’t skimp on important purchases! Don’t hurry, it’s on the bill. Give it here, we want to make him really small first, drive him all the way down – like this.” And she took the thermometer from his hand, repeatedly blew it up in the air and thus drove the mercury even lower, down to below 35. “Mercurius will rise, will rise,” she said. “Here is your acquisition! You know how we do it, don’t you? Put it under your tongue, for seven minutes, four times a day, and close your lips tightly around it. Good-bye, man! Wishing you good results!” And she was out of the room.

Hans Castorp, who had bowed, stood at the table and looked at the door through which she had disappeared and at the instrument she had left behind. “Now that was the matron of Mylendonk,” he thought. “Settembrini doesn’t like her, and it’s true she has her troubles. The stye isn’t pretty, and by the way, she doesn’t always have it. But why does she always call me ‘gosh’ with an s in the middle? It’s tomboyish and weird. And now she sold me a thermometer, she always has a few in her pocket. There’s supposed to be some everywhere here, in all the shops, even in places where you shouldn’t expect it, Joachim said. But I didn’t have to bother, it fell into my lap of its own accord.” He took the delicate device out of its case, looked at it and then walked around the room with it several times in agitated manner. His heart was beating fast and strong. He looked around for the open balcony door and made a movement towards the room door, out of the impulse to seek out Joachim.but then he stopped and stopped at the table again, clearing his throat to test the dullness of his voice. Then he coughed. “Yes, I must now see whether I have a cold,” he said, and quickly put the thermometer in his mouth, the mercury tip under his tongue, so that the instrument protruded obliquely upwards between his lips, which he closed tightly around no outside air allowed. Then he checked his watch: it was six minutes past nine. And he began to wait for seven minutes to pass.

“Not a superfluous second,” he thought, “and not one short. You can rely on me, above and below. There is no need to confuse him with a mute sister, like the person Settembrini was talking about, Ottilie Kneifer.” And he walked around the room, pressing down the instrument with his tongue.

Time crept, the deadline seemed endless. Only two and a half minutes had passed when he checked the hands, already worried he might miss the moment. He did thousands of things, picked up objects and put them down, stepped out onto the balcony without making his cousin notice, surveyed the landscape, this high valley, already familiar to him in all its forms: with its horns, ridge lines and walls, with the backdrop of the “Brembühl” on the left, whose back sloped down towards the village and whose flank was covered by the rough Mattenwald, with the mountain formations on the right, whose names he had also become familiar with, and the old canvas that depicts the valley from here seen from the point of view of the south, looked down on the paths and beds of the garden platform, the rocky grotto, theEdeltanne listened to a whisper coming from the lounge where the treatment was being taken, and turned back into the room, trying to improve the position of the instrument in his mouth, and then stretching out his arm again to pull his sleeve off his wrist and bend your forearm in front of your face. With effort and exertion, with pushing, pushing and kicking, as it were, six minutes were passed. But as he now, standing in the middle of the room, fell into dreaming and let his thoughts wander, the last one that was still left slipped away unnoticed on cat’s paws, a new arm movement revealed its secret escape, and it was a little too late, the eighth one lay already to a third in the past, when he with the thought that it would do no harm, did not matter and had no meaning for the result,

He did not immediately understand what he said, the brilliance of the mercury coincided with the reflection of light from the flat, round glass jacket, the pillar sometimes seemed to stand very high, sometimes not to be there at all, he brought the instrument close to his eyes and turned it back and forth and didn’t see anything. Finally, after a happy turn of events, the image became clear to him, he held it fast and hastily processed it with his mind. In fact, Mercury had expanded, it had expanded considerably, the column had risen quite high, it was several tenths of a point above the limit of normal blood heat, Hans Castorp had 37.6.

In the morning between ten and half past ten 37.6 – that was too much, it was “temperature”, fever as a result of an infection, for which he had been receptive and askedwondering what kind of infection it was. 37.6, – that’s all Joachim had, no one here had more who wasn’t in bed seriously ill or moribund, neither Kleefeld with the pneumothorax nor … nor Madame Chauchat. In his case, of course, it probably wasn’t quite the right thing – mere cold fever, as it was called below. But they couldn’t be distinguished or distinguished exactly, Hans Castorp doubted that he only got this temperature after he caught a cold, and he had to regret not having asked Mercury earlier, right at the beginning, as the privy councilor had suggested . This advice had been quite sensible, it was now evident, and Settembrini had done absolutely wrong to laugh at it so scornfully—Settembrini with the republic and the beautiful style.

His movement was powerful. He walked through the room a couple of times, the thermometer in his hand, but holding it level so as not to cause any disturbance from vertical vibrations, then carefully laid it down on the washstand and first went into the room with a pallet and blankets Rest cure. Sitting, he threw the blankets around him, as he had learned, from the sides and from below, one after the other, with a practiced hand, and then lay still, awaiting the hour of second breakfast and Joachim’s entrance. At times he smiled, and itwas like smiling at someone. Sometimes his chest heaved with an uneasy tremor, and then he would cough out of his catarrhal chest.

Joachim found him still lying down when, at eleven o’clock, after the gong had sounded, he came over to pick him up for breakfast.

“Well?” he asked in wonder, stepping to the side of the chair…

Hans Castorp was silent for a while and looked straight ahead. Then he answered:

“Yeah, so the latest is I’ve got a temperature.”

“What does that mean?” asked Joachim. “Are you feeling feverish?”

Hans Castorp again waited a little for the answer and then gave the following with a certain laziness:

“Feverish, my dear, I’ve been feeling for a long time, all the time. But now it is not a question of subjective sensations, but of an exact statement. I measured myself.”

“You measured yourself?! With what?!” Joachim exclaimed, startled.

“With a thermometer, of course,” Hans Castorp replied, not without mockery and severity. “The matron sold me one. I don’t know why she always addresses you as ‘human child’; it is not correct. But she sold me a very good thermometer in a hurry, and if you want to see for yourself how much it shows, it’s in there on the washstand. It’s a minimal increase.”

Joachim turned around and went into the room. When he returned he said hesitantly:

“Yes, that’s 37 point 5½.”

“Then it went back a bit!” replied Hans Castorp quickly. “There were six.”

“You can’t call that minimal for the morning,” said Joachim. “A nice mess,” he said, and stood at his cousin’s bed the way one stands in front of a “nice mess,” arms akimbo and head bowed. “You’re going to have to go to bed.”

Hans Castorp had his answer ready.

“I don’t see,” he said, “why I should go to bed at 37.6 when you and so many others who don’t have less either – when you’re all roaming free around here.”

“But that’s something else,” said Joachim. “With you it is acute and harmless. You have a cold.”

“Firstly,” replied Hans Castorp and now even divided his speech into first and second, “I don’t understand why one has to stay in bed with a harmless fever – I’ll assume that there is such a thing – with a harmless fever, with but not others. And secondly, I’m telling you that the cold hasn’t made me any hotter than I was before. I am of the opinion,’ he concluded, ‘that 37.6 equals 37.6. If you can walk around in it, so can I.”

“But I had to lie there for four weeks when I arrived,” objected Joachim; “And only when it became evident that the temperature did not go away with bed rest was I allowed to get up.”

Hans Castorp smiled.

“So what?” he asked. “I think it was different for you? It seems to me that you get caught up in contradictions. First you distinguish, and then you equate. That’s gibberish…”

Joachim turned on his heel and when he turned back to face his cousin you could see that his tanned face had gone a shade darker.

“No,” he said, “I’m not equating, you’re a council of confusion. I’m just saying you’ve got a bad cold, you can hear it in your voice, and you should lie down to shorten the process since you’re going home next week. But if you don’t want to – I mean: if you don’t want to lie down, you can leave it alone. I don’t make any rules for you. Anyway, we have to go to breakfast now. Go, it’s about time!”

“Correct. Go!” said Hans Castorp and threw the blankets away. He went into the room to brush his hair, and while he was doing it Joachim checked the thermometer on the washstand again, while Hans Castorp watched him from afar. Then they left, in silence, and once again sat in their places in the dining room, which, as always at this hour, shimmered white with milk.

When the dwarf brought the Kulmbacher beer for Hans Castorp, he refused it with serious resignation. He’d rather not drink any beer today, not drink anything at all, no, thank you very much, at most a sip of water. That caused a stir. How come? What innovations! Why no beer? – He’s got a bit of a temperature, Hans Castorp pointed out. 37.6. Minimal.

Then they threatened him with their forefingers – it was very strange. They got mischievous, cocked their heads to the side, screwed up one eye, and poked their forefingers at ear level, as if saucy, risqué things were coming to light from someone who had been playing the innocent. “Well, well, you,” said the teacher, and the down of her cheeks reddened while she threatened with a smile. “One hears clean stories, exuberant ones. Wait, wait, wait.” – “Eh, ei, ei”, said Mrs. Stöhr and threatened with her short, red butt by holding it next to her nose. “He has tempus, the gentleman visitor. You are one of my – you are my right one, a merry brother!” – Even the great-aunt at the upper end of the table threatened him jokingly and slyly when the news reached her; the pretty Marusja, who has hardly ever paid any attention to him, leaned towards him and, with the orange tissue pressed to her lips, looked at him with her round brown eyes while she threatened; also dr Blumenkohl, to whom Frau Stohr was telling the story, could not help but join in the general gesture, without, of course, looking at Hans Castorp, and only Miss Robinson appeared impassive and reserved as always. Joachim kept his eyes downcast with a respectful expression.

Hans Castorp, flattered by so much teasing, felt he had to modestly decline. “No, no,” he said, “you’re wrong, my case is the most harmless imaginable, I have a cold, you see, my eyes are going over, my chest is hard, I cough half the night, it’s unpleasant enough . ..” But they didn’t accept his apologies, they laughed and waved their hands at him, shouting: “Yes, yes, yes, nonsense, excuses, cold fever, we know, knowWe!” And then they all demanded that Hans Castorp report immediately for an investigation. They were animated by the news; Of the seven tables, conversation at breakfast was liveliest at this one. Mrs. Stöhr in particular, with a crimson, stubborn face above her ruffle and small cracks in the skin of her cheeks, displayed an almost wild talkativeness and indulged in the pleasure of coughing – yes, it was definitely an entertaining and enjoyable thing to do with it when in The tickling increases and grows on the bottom of the breast and one reaches down really deeply with spasms and pressure in order to satisfy the stimulus: it is similar fun to sneezing, when the desire to do so rises enormously and becomes irresistible and one looks intoxicated exhale and inhale stormily a few times, surrendered blissfully and forgot the whole world over the blessed outburst. And sometimes it comes two or three times in a row. These are free pleasures of life, such as scratching one’s chilblains in spring when they itch so sweetly – scratching oneself really heartily and cruelly to the point of blood in anger and pleasure, and if one happens to look in the mirror look at it, then you would see a devil’s grimace.

The illiterate Stohr talked in such horrible detail until the short, if substantial, snack was over and the cousins ​​started their second morning course, down the aisle to Platz Davos. Joachim was out and about, and Hans Castorp was groaning with a cold and clearing his rusty chest. On the way home Joachim said:

“I’ll make you a suggestion. Today is Friday – tomorrow after dinner I have a monthly check-up. It’s not a physical, but Behrens gives me a little pat on the head and has Krokowski make a few notes. You could come along and ask them to listen to you quickly on that occasion. It’s ridiculous – if you were at home, you would let Heidekind come. And here, where there are two specialists in the house, you walk around and don’t know where you are and how deep it is with you, and whether you wouldn’t do better to lie down.”

“Nice,” said Hans Castorp. “How you mean. Of course I can do it that way. And it’s also interesting for me to attend an investigation.”

So they agreed; And when they got up to the sanatorium, chance would have it that they met Hofrat Behrens in person and found a good opportunity to put forward their request standing foot.

Behrens came out of the porch, tall and tall, a bowler hat on the back of his head and a cigar in his mouth, blue-cheeked and bulging-eyed, quite in the course of his work, on the point of going about his private practice, making visits to the town, having just arrived in the operating room at work, he explained.

“Meal, gentlemen!” he said. “Always on the roll? Was it fine in the big world? I’ve just come from an unequal duel on knife and bone saw – big deal, you know, rib resection. Fifty percent used to stay on the house table. We’ve got it better now, but often you have to pack things up prematurely mortis causa . Well, the one from today could understand a joke,stuck to the point for the moment… Doll, what a human thorax that isn’t any more. Soft tissue, you know, undressing, slight blurring of the idea, so to speak. Well, and you? How is the valued condition doing? It’s probably a more merry way of life for two, eh, Ziemssen, old smartass? Why are you crying, you pleasure traveler?” he suddenly turned to Hans Castorp. “Public crying is not allowed here. house rules ban. Anyone could come.”

“That’s my cold, Herr Hofrat,” answered Hans Castorp. “I don’t know how it was possible, but I caught an enormous catarrh. I have a cough too, and it’s really on my chest.”

said Behrens. “Then you should consult an understanding doctor.”

The two laughed, and Joachim responded by drawing the paragraphs together:

“We are about to, Herr Hofrat. I have an examination tomorrow, and we wanted to ask if you would be so kind as to take my cousin right away. The question is whether he will be able to travel on Tuesday…”

“M w.!” said Behrens. “M wm F.! Let’s do it with pleasure! We should have done it a long time ago. If you’re already here, you should always take it with you. But of course you don’t want to impose yourself. So tomorrow at two, as soon as you come from the crèche!’

“Because I also have a bit of a fever,” Hans Castorp remarked.

“What you say!” exclaimed Behrens. “You want to tell me some news? Do you think I have no eyes?in your head?” And he pointed with his mighty forefinger at his two bloodshot, blue, bulging, tearing eyeballs. “By the way, how much is it?”

Hans Castorp modestly named the number.

“Morning? Hmm, not bad. Not so bad at first. So, in pairs, tomorrow at two! Should be an award for me. Blessed ingestion!’ And with bent knees and flailing hands he began to trudge down the sloping path, smoke trailing backward from his cigar.

“So that would be arranged according to your wishes,” said Hans Castorp. “It couldn’t have been happier, and now I’m registered. He won’t be able to do much more than prescribe me some liquorice juice or tea, but it’s nice to have a little medical advice when you feel like me. But why is he always talking so immoderately brashly!” he said. “I liked it at first, but I didn’t like it in the long run. ‘Blessed Ingestion’! What gibberish. One can say: ‘Blessed Meal’! for ‘meal’ is a poetic word, so to speak, like ‘daily bread’, and goes quite well with ‘blessed’. But ‘food intake’ is pure physiology, and wishing blessings on it is taunting talk. I don’t like to see it either when he smokes, it’s scary for me because I know it doesn’t suit him and makes him melancholic. Settembrini said of him that his jollity was forced, and Settembrini is a critic, a man of judgment, I have to give him that. Maybe I should judge more and not everythingtake it as it is, he’s quite right. But sometimes you start with judgment and reproach and just nuisance, and then something else comes up that has nothing to do with judgements, and then the strict morals are over, and the republic and the beautiful style just come to you insipid of…”

He mumbled indistinctly, not seeming quite sure what he meant himself. Also, his cousin only gave him a sidelong look and said, “Goodbye,” after which everyone went to his room and into his balcony box.

“How much?” asked Joachim after a while, although he did not see that Hans Castorp had consulted his thermometer again… And Hans Castorp answered in an indifferent tone:

“Nothing new.”

In fact, as soon as he entered he had taken his dainty acquisition from the washstand that morning, had destroyed the 37.6, which had now played out its role, with vertical blows and, looking like an old man, with a glass cigar in his mouth, had gone into the rest cure has. But contrary to all too high expectations and although he kept the instrument under his tongue for a full eight minutes, Mercury had not expanded further than only to 37.6 – which, by the way, was a fever, although not higher than earlier in the morning been present. After Tische the shimmering column rose to 37.7, stayed at 37.5 in the evening when the patient was very tired after the excitement and news of the day, and in the next morning it was only 37, about noon the level of yesterday to reach again.Main meal of the following day and with its completion the hour of the rendezvous approaches.

Hans Castorp later recalled that during this meal Madame Chauchat had worn a yellow-gold sweater with large buttons and bordered pockets, which was new, at least new for Hans Castorp, and in which she, arriving late as usual, was of the kind that Hans Castorp, so well acquainted with her, had faced the hall for a moment. Then, as she did five times a day, she glided to her table, sat down with gentle movements and began to eat while chatting: Hans Castorp, like every day, but with special attention, had seen her head move when she spoke and again her Noticed the curve of her neck, the slackness of her back as he passed behind Settembrinis, who was sitting at the end of the sloping table, had looked over to the Good Russian Table. Mrs. Chauchat, for her part, had not once looked back at the room during lunch. But when dessert had been eaten and the large chain and pendulum clock on the narrow right side of the room, where the Bad Russian Table was standing, had struck two, to Hans Castorp’s mysterious shock it had happened nonetheless: while the clock struck two – one and two – the graceful invalid had slowly turned her head and a little also her upper body and over her shoulder clearly and openly to Hans Castorp’s table – and not only in general to his table, no, unmistakably and strictly personallylooked over at him , a smile on her closed lips and in her narrow-set Pribislav eyes,as if to say, “Well? It’s time. Will you go?” (because if only the eyes speak, the speech is on a first-name basis, even if the mouth hasn’t even said “Sie”) – and that was an incident that confused and horrified Hans Castorp to the core of his soul – he had scarcely believed his senses and, aghast, looked first at Frau Chauchat’s face and then, raising his eyes, over her forehead and her hair into space. Did she know that he had been summoned for an examination at two o’clock? That’s what it looked like. And yet it was almost as improbable as she should have known that just a moment ago, in the very last minute, he had been wondering whether he should not let Joachim tell the Hofrat his cold had already gotten better and he considered the examination superfluous: a thought whose virtues had certainly withered away under that questioning smile and turned into sheer repulsive boredom. In the next second Joachim had already put his rolled serviette on the table, had waved at him with raised eyebrows, bowed to those sitting around and left the table – whereupon Hans Castorp staggered inwardly, albeit with firm steps on the outside, and with the Feeling that those looks and smiles were still upon him which Cousin followed out of the hall.

They hadn’t talked about their plans for the day since yesterday morning, and now they were leaving in tacit agreement. Joachim hurried: it was past the agreed hour, and Hofrat Behrens insisted on being punctual. It went from the dining room along the ground-level corridor, past the “administration” and the clean,stairs covered with waxed linoleum to the basement “down”. Joachim knocked on the door which, directly opposite the stairs, was identified by a porcelain sign as the entrance to the surgery room.

” Here in!” called Behrens, strongly emphasizing the first syllable. He stood in the middle of the room, in his smock, in his right hand the black ear-tape with which he tapped his thigh.

“Tempo, tempo,” he said, turning his bulging eyes to the clock on the wall. ” Un poco più presto, Signori! We do not exist entirely exclusively for your Highness.’

At the double desk in front of the window sat Dr. Krokowski, pale against his black chandelier shirt, elbows on the platter, pen in one hand, beard in the other, papers in front of him, probably the medical record, and looked at the newcomer with the dull expression of a personality who is only present as an assistant , in contrast to.

“Well, bring me the conduit!” replied the privy councilor to Joachim’s apologies and took the temperature chart from him to look through it while the patient hurried to free his upper body and hang the discarded clothes on the coat rack next to the door . Nobody bothered about Hans Castorp. He stood watching for a while and later sat down on an old-fashioned little armchair with tasseled armrests at the side of a small table with a water carafe. Bookcases with broad-backed medical works and filing cabinets lined the walls. The only other piece of furniture was higher, covered with white oilclothand a chaise longue that could be lowered, with a paper serviette spread over the headrest.

“Point 7, point 9, point 8,” said Behrens, leafing through the weekly cards in which Joachim faithfully entered the results of his measurements, which were taken five times a day. “Still a little enlightened, dear Ziemssen, can’t exactly say that you’ve become more solid recently. (“Recently,” that was four weeks ago.) Not detoxed, not detoxified,” he said. “Well, of course that doesn’t happen overnight, we can’t do magic either.”

Joachim nodded and shrugged his bare shoulders, although he could have objected that he hadn’t been up here since yesterday.

“How about the stitches on the right hilum, where it always sounded sharp? Better? Come here! Let’s knock on your door politely.” And the auscultation began.

Hofrat Behrens, legs apart and leaning backwards, the receiver under his arm, tapped first at the top of Joachim’s right shoulder, tapping from the wrist, using the powerful middle finger of his right hand as a hammer and using his left for support. Then he went down under the shoulder blade and tapped the side of the middle and lower back, whereupon Joachim, who was well trained, raised his arm to tap under the armpit as well. The whole thing was then repeated on the left, and when he was done, the privy councilor commanded “Turn!” to be tapped on the chest. He tapped just below the neck at the collarbone, tapped above and below the breast, first on the right and then on the left. But when he had finished knocking, he went to listenover by placing his ear-trumpet, ear to the shell, on Joachim’s chest and back, wherever he had previously knocked. Joachim had to alternately breathe heavily and cough artificially, which seemed to be a great strain on him, for he was getting out of breath and tears welled up in his eyes. Hofrat Behrens, however, reported everything he heard inside to the assistant in short, firm words over to the desk, in such a way that Hans Castorp could not help but think of what happened at the tailor’s when the well-dressed gentleman measured a suit for you takes the meter tape here and there around the torso and on the limbs of the customer in the usual order and dictates the digits obtained to the bent-over assistant. “Short”, “shortened”, dictated Hofrat Behrens. “Vesicular,” he said, and again: “Vesicular” (that was good, apparently). “Rough,” he said, making a face. “Very rough.” “Noise.” And Dr. Krokowski entered everything, just as the clerk entered the numbers for the cutter.

Hans Castorp followed the proceedings with his head tilted sideways, pensively contemplating Joachim’s upper body, whose ribs (thank God he had his ribs) rose high above the sagging stomach when he puffed, – this slender, yellowish-brunette A youthful torso with black hair on the breastbone and on the otherwise strong arms, one of which wore a gold chain bracelet around the wrist. Those are gymnast arms, thought Hans Castorp; he always liked to do gymnastics, while I didn’t care, and that had to do with his desire to become a soldier. He’s always been good physically, a lotmore than I, or at least in a different way; for I was always a civilian, and I was more concerned with taking warm baths and eating and drinking well, but with manly demands and achievements for him. And now his body has come to the fore in a completely different way and has made itself independent and important, namely through illness. He is illuminated and doesn’t want to decontaminate himself and become solid, no matter how much poor Joachim would like to be a soldier in the lowlands. Look, he’s grown like a book, the pure Apollo of Belvedere, down to his hair. But inside he is sick and outside too warm with sickness; because illness makes a person much more physical, it makes him completely a body … And when he thought this, he was startled and looked up quickly and searchingly from Joachim’s bare upper body to his eyes,

Meanwhile Hofrat Behrens had finished.

“Well, that’s good, Ziemssen,” he said. “Everything is fine, as far as it is possible. Next time” (that was in four weeks), “it will certainly be a little better everywhere.”

“How long do Herr Hofrat mean that -“

“Are you going to push again? You can’t bully your guys when they’re tipsy! The other day I said half a year – count from the other day if you like, but consider it a minimum. After all, you can live here, you have to be polite too. After all, we are not a Bagno and not a … Siberian mine! Or do you want to say that we are with something like thathave resemblance? It’s good, Ziemssen! step away! Go on, if you still feel like it!” he shouted and looked up into the air. With outstretched arms, he handed his earpiece to Dr. Krokowski, who got up and took it to do a little assistant check on Joachim.

Hans Castorp had jumped up too, and with his eyes fixed on the person of the Hofrat, who was standing there with his legs apart and his mouth open, apparently lost in thought, he began to hurry to get ready. He rushed, not finding his way out of his polka-dot cuffed shirt as he pulled it over his head. And then he stood, white, blond and slim, in front of Hofrat Behrens – he seemed to have a more civil education than Joachim Ziemssen.

But the Hofrat left him there, still thinking. dr Krokowski had already sat down again and Joachim was getting ready to dress when Behrens finally decided to take notice of whoever was interested.

“Oh, that’s you now !” he said, grabbed Hans Castorp’s upper arm with his huge hand, pushed him away and looked at him closely. He did not look at his face as one looks at a person, but at his body; turned him over as one turns a body, and also looked at his back. “Hmm,” he said. “Well, let’s see howThey allude to you.” And as before, he began his tapping.

He knocked everywhere where he had done it with Joachim Ziemssen, and returned to different places several times. For a long time he alternately tapped on the top left of the collarbone and a little further down for comparison purposes.

“Do you hear?” he asked to Dr. Krokowski over… And Dr. Krokowski, five paces away at the deskseated, bowed his head to show that he was listening: earnestly he lowered his chin to his chest, so that his beard was pressed in and the tips curled upwards.

“Breathe deeply! Cough!” commanded the Hofrat, who now picked up the ear-trumpet again; and Hans Castorp worked hard, probably for eight or ten minutes, while the privy councilor listened to him. He didn’t say a word, just put the ear-trumpet here and there and listened specifically and repeatedly at the points where he had been knocking before. Then he put the instrument under his arm, put his hands behind his back and looked down at the floor between himself and Hans Castorp.

“Yes, Castorp,” he said – and it was the first time that he simply called the young man by his last name – “the matter is as praeter-propter as I had always thought it would be . I’ve had you on the line, Castorp, now I can tell you – right from the start, ever since I first had the undeserved distinction of knowing you – and pretty sure suspected that you were secretly a local and that too would see, as did many a man who came up here for fun and looked around with his nose up and one day learned that he was doing well – and not just ‘doing well’, please understand me – here, without any air of disinterested curiosity, a something to make a more extensive stop.”

Hans Castorp had changed color and Joachim, just about to button his suspenders, stopped as he stood and listened.

“You have such a nice, sympathetic cousin there,” continued the Hofrat, nodding at Joachimsside, rocking on the balls of his feet and heels, “- who will hopefully soon be able to say that he was ill once , but when we’ve got that far, he’ll always have been ill before , you Mr. right cousin, and that sheds a priori , as the thinker says, a certain light on you too, dear Castorp…”

“But he’s only a step-cousin of mine, Herr Hofrat.”

“Well, well. Surely you don’t want to betray your cousin. Step or not, he’ll always be a blood relative. From which side?

“Of a mother’s, Herr Hofrat. He’s the son of a step-“

“And your wife Mama is happy?”

“No, she’s dead. She died when I was little.”

“Oh why?”

“Blood clot, Herr Hofrat.”

“Blood clot? Well, it’s been a long time. And your father?”

“He died of pneumonia -” said Hans Castorp, “and my grandfather too -” he added.

“So, him too? Well, so much for your ancestors. Now, as for you, you were always pretty anaemic, weren’t you? But you didn’t get tired easily with physical and mental work? But? And have a lot of heart palpitations? Recently? Fine, and besides there is obviously a lively tendency to catarrh of the airways. Do you know that you have been ill before?”

“I?”

“Yes, I am keeping an eye on you personally. Do you hear the difference?” And the privy councilor alternately knocked on the upper left side of the chest and a little further down.

“It sounds a bit duller there than here,” said Hans Castorp.

“Very good. You should become a specialist. So that’s a dullness, and dullnesses are based on old spots where calcification has already set in, scarring if you will. You’re an old patient, Castorp, but we don’t blame anyone for not finding out. The early diagnosis is difficult – especially for the gentlemen colleagues in the lowlands. I don’t even want to say that we have finer ears, although the special practice makes a difference. But the air helps us hear, you know, the thin, dry air up here.”

“Certainly, of course,” said Hans Castorp.

“Fine, Castorp. And now listen, my boy, I just want to say several golden words. If it were nothing more with you, you understand, and if it were content with the dampening and scars on your aeolus tube in there and with the calcareous foreign bodies in it, I would send you to your Lares and Penates and I wouldn’t give a damn You care, do you understand? But the way things are and the findings are still there, and since you are here with us – it’s not worth the journey home, Hans Castorp – you’ll have to start again shortly.”

Hans Castorp felt his blood rushing to his heart again, so that it was pounding, and Joachim was still standing with his hands on the back buttons and his eyes downcast.

“Because besides the dullness,” said the Councilor, “you also have a roughness up there on the left, which is almost a noise and undoubtedly comes from a fresh spot – I don’t want to speak of a softening focus yet, but it is definitely one wet spot, and if you keep doing it like that down there, my dear, you’ll go, what’s the matter with you, the whole lobe of your lungs to hell.”

Hans Castorp stood motionless, his mouth twitched strangely, and you could clearly see his heart pounding against his ribs. He looked over at Joachim, whose eyes he couldn’t find, and then again at the Hofrat’s face with the blue cheeks, the blue eyes that were also bulging, and the little mustache that was pulled up on one side.

“As objective confirmation,” Behrens continued, “we still have your temperature: 37.6 ten o’clock in the morning, that pretty much corresponds to the acoustic perceptions.”

“I just thought,” said Hans Castorp, “that the fever was from my catarrh.”

“And the catarrh?” replied the privy councillor… “Where does it come from? Let me tell you something, Castorp, and be careful, as far as I know you have a sufficiently large number of convolutions in your brain. So the air here with us, it’s good against the disease, don’t you think? And that’s the way it is. But it’s also good for the disease, understand me, it encourages it first, it revolutionizes the body, it erupts the latent disease, and such an eruption, no offense, is your catarrh. I don’t know whether you were already febrile down in the lowlands, but up here you became febrile on the very first day and not only because of your catarrh – to give you my opinion.”

“Yes,” said Hans Castorp, “yes, I really think so too.”

“You were probably tipsy straight away,” confirmed the Hofrat. “These are the soluble toxins produced by the bacteria; they have a heady effect on the central nervous system, you know, and then you get cheerful cheeks. You’re going to get screwed, Castorp; we need to see if we can sober you up with a few weeks of bed rest. The rest can come later. We take a nice inside view of you – you will enjoy gaining insight into yourself in this way. But I’ll tell you right away: a case like yours doesn’t heal from today to the day after tomorrow, and there are no signs of successful advertising or miracle cures. It immediately struck me as if you would be a better patient, with more talent for being ill than that brigadier general who always wants to leave, when he has a few lines less. As if stand still wasn’t as good a command as stand still! Rest is the first duty of citizenship, and impatience only harms. So that you don’t disappoint me, Castorp, and don’t give the lie to my knowledge of human nature, I beg of you! And now march to the depot with you!”

With that, Hofrat Behrens ended the conversation and sat down at his desk to fill in the break until the next investigation with written work. dr But Krokowski got up from his seat, walked up to Hans Castorp and, with his head tilted back, one hand on the young man’s shoulder and smiling heartily so that his yellowish teeth were visible in his beard, he heartily shook his right hand .