The Magic Mountain Part 29

"Yes, yes; but tell me, why did he never become a Father? He was old enough,wasn't he?"

"I did tell you-it was his illness prevented him."

"Well, but don't you think-if he is first a Jesuit and second a man of intellect,always making new combinations-don't you think this second, added characteristichas to do with his illness?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I only mean-look: he has a moist spot, and that hinders him from becoming a Father. But his combinations would probably have hindered him anyhow, and so, in a certain way, the spot and the combinations hang together. In his way he too is a sort of delicate child-a joli jesuite joli jesuite with a pe with a pet.i.te tache humide."

They had reached the sanatorium, but stood in a little group on the terrace before the house talking still awhile before parting, and watched by a few guests who happened to be lounging there. Herr Setrembrini said: "I repeat, my young friends-I warn you. I cannot prevent you from cultivating the acquaintance now it is made, if curiosity leads you to do so. But arm yourselves, arm your hearts and minds with suspicion, oppose him with a critical spirit. I will characterize this man for you with a single word. He is a voluptuary."

The cousins made astonished faces. Hans Castorp asked: "A-what? But he is a member of a Society. They have to take certain vows, I have always supposed-and then he is such a poor creature physically, so-"

"You are talking rubbish, Engineer," Settembrini interposed. "It has nothing to do with physical insufficiency; while as for the vows you speak of, there are always reservations. I was speaking in a broader, more intellectual sense, your comprehension of which I felt I might presume upon, by now. You probably remember my visiting you one day in your room-it was long ago, frightfully long ago-you had just finished your three weeks in bed, after being received into the sanatorium."

"Of course. You came in at dusk, and turned on the light-I remember it as if it were yesterday-"

"Good. We fell into talk, as we have often done, I rejoice to say, and upon somewhat elevated subjects. We spoke, I believe, of life and death: of the dignity of death in so far as it is the condition and appurtenance of life, and the grotesqueness into which it declines so soon as the mind erects it into an independent principle. Young men," went on Herr Settembrini, standing close to the two, with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand splayed out like a fork, as if to collect their attention, while he raised the forefinger of his right in warning, "imprint it upon your minds: the mind is sovereign. Its will is free, it conditions the moral world. Let it once dualistically isolate death, and death will become, in actual fact, actu actu, by this mental act of will, you understand me, a power in itself, the power opposed to life, the inimical principle, the great temptation; whose kingdom is the kingdom of the flesh. You ask me why of the flesh? I answer you: because it unlooses and delivers, because it is deliverance-yet not deliverance from evil, but deliverance by evil. It relaxes manners and morals, it frees man from discipline and restraint, it abandons him to l.u.s.t. If I warn you against this man, whose acquaintance with you I have unwillingly brought about, if I exhort you to go thrice-armed with a critical spirit in all your dealings with him, it is because all his thoughts are voluptuous, and stand under the aegis of death-and death is the most dissolute of powers, as I told you then, Engineer-I well remember my words, for I never fail to retain in my mind any good and telling phrase I may have chanced to avail myself of-a power hostile to civilization and progress, to work and to life, against whose mephitic breath it is the n.o.blest task of the teacher to s.h.i.+eld the mind of youth."

Who could talk more beautifully than Herr Settembrini, who clearer, or in betterrounded periods? Hans Castorp and Joachim Ziemssen thanked him most warmly for all he had said, and mounted the Berghof steps, while Herr Settembrini betook himself once more to his humanistic writing-desk, in the storey above Naphta's silken cell. This first visit of the cousins to Naphta, whose course we have described, was followed by two or three others; one, even, in the absence of Herr Settembrini. All of them afforded young Hans Castorp much food for thought, when, in his blueblossoming retreat, with the image of the human form divine, called h.o.m.o Dei h.o.m.o Dei, hovering before his mind's eye, he sat and "took stock."

Choler. And Worse And Worse

AUGUST arrived, and with its entry slipped past the anniversary of our hero's arrival in these parts. So much the better when it was gone-young Hans Castorp had scarcely looked forward to it with pleasure. And that was the rule. The anniversary was not popular. The old inhabitants pa.s.sed it by without thought; and-though in general they seized on every pretext for jollification, and took occasion to celebrate their own private anniversaries in addition to these that accented the recurrent rhythm of the year; making merry with popping of corks in the restaurant, over birthdays, general examinations, imminent departures whether "wild" or sanctioned, and the like-they accorded to the anniversary of arrival no other attention than that of a profound silence. They let it slip past, perhaps they actually managed to forget it, and they might be confident that no one else would remember. They set store by a proper articulation of the time, they gave heed to the calendar, observed the turning-points of the year, its recurrent limits. But to measure one's own private time, that time which for the individual in these parts was so closely bound up with s.p.a.ce-that was held to be an occupation only fit for new arrivals and short-termers. The settled citizens preferred the unmeasured, the eternal, the day that was for ever the same; and delicately each respected in others the sentiment he so warmly cherished himself. To say to anybody that this day three years ago was the day of his arrival, that would have been considered brutal, in consummately bad taste-it simply never happened. Even Frau Stohr, whatever her lacks in other respects, was far too tactful and well disciplined to let it slip out. Certainly she united great ignorance with her infected and feverish physical state. Recently at table she had alluded to the "affectation" of the tip of her lung; and the conversation having taken a historical turn, she explained that dates were her "ring of Polycrates"-a remark which made her hearers stare. But it was unthinkable that she should remind young Ziemssen his year would be up in February-though she had very likely thought of it. For the unhappy creature's head was full of useless baggage, and she loved to keep track of other people's affairs. But the tradition of the place held her in check.

Thus also on Hans Castorp's anniversary. She may have even tried to nod at him meaningfully, at table; but encountering a vacant stare dexterously withdrew. Joachim too had kept silence, though he probably had clearly in mind the date on which he had fetched the guest from the Dorf station. Joachim was ever by nature taciturn; had always talked less than his cousin, even before they came up here-there had never been any comparison between him and the humanists and controversialists of their acquaintance-and in these days his silence had a.s.sumed heroic proportions, only monosyllables pa.s.sed his lips. His manner, however, spoke volumes. It was plain that in his mind the Dorf station was a.s.sociated with another order of ideas than those of arrival or meeting people. He was conducting a lively correspondence with the flatland; his resolve was ripening, his preparations drawing to a head.

July had been warm and bright. But with August bad weather set in, cloudy and damp; with first a sleety drizzle and then actual snow. And it lasted-with interludes of single resplendent days-all through the month, and on into September. At first the rooms held the warmth of the summery period just past: they stood at fifty degrees, which pa.s.sed for comfortable. But it grew rapidly colder; there were rejoicings when the snowfall whitened the valley, for the sight of it-the sight alone, for the mere drop of the temperature would not have sufficed-compelled the management to heat, first the dining-room, then the chambers as well; so that when one rolled out of the rugs, at the end of a rest period, and re-entered one's chamber, one might warm one's stiffened fingers against the hot pipes, though the dry air these gave out did accentuate the burning in the cheeks.

Was it winter again? Almost the senses thought so. On every hand were loud complaints, that they had been cheated out of their summer; though they had really cheated themselves, abetted by conditions both natural and artificial, and by a consumption of time-units reckless alike within and without. Reason was aware that fine autumnal weather was certain to follow, there would be a succession of brilliant days each outvying the other, and so fine that one might still honour them with the name of summer, save for the flatter arc the sun made in its course, and its earlier setting. But the effect of the winter landscape on the spirit was stronger than the power of such consolatory thoughts. The cousins would stand at the closed door into the balcony, and look out with loathing into the whirl of flakes-it was Joachim who stood thus, and in a suppressed voice he said: "So that's to begin all over again, is it?" From behind him in the room Hans Castorp responded: "That would be rather early-surely it can't be settling down to winter already-but it has a terribly final look. If winter consists in darkness and cold, snow and hot pipes, then there's no denying it's winter again. And when you think we'd just finished with it and that the snow only just melted-at least, it seems that way, doesn't it, as though spring were only just over-well, it gives one a turn, I will say. It is actually a blow to one's love of life-let me explain to you how I mean. I mean the world as normally arranged is conducive to man's needs and his pleasure in life-isn't that so? I won't go so far as to say that the whole natural order of things, for instance the size of the earth, the time it takes to revolve on its axis and about the sun, the division between day and night, summer and winter-in short, the whole cosmic rhythm, if you like to call it that- was especially arranged for our use and behoof; that would be cheek, I suppose, and simple-minded into the bargain. It would be teleological reasoning, as the philosophers express it. No, it would be truer to say that our needs are-thank G.o.d that it should be so-in harmony with the larger, the fundamental facts of nature. I say thank G.o.d, for it is really ground for praising Him. Now, when summer or winter comes along down below, the past summer or winter is far enough in the past to make one glad to see it again-and therein lies some of the joy we have in life. But up here this order and harmony are destroyed: first because there are no proper seasons, as you yourself said when I first came, but only summer days and winter days all mixed up together; and secondly, because what we spend up here isn't time at all, and the new winter, when it comes, isn't new, but the same old winter all the time. All that explains perfectly the disgust you feel when you look out at the window."

"Thanks," Joachim said. "And now that you have explained it, you feel so satisfied that you are even satisfied with the situation itself-although in all human-no!" said he. "I'm done. Fed up. It's beastly. The whole thing is just one tremendous, rotten, beastly sell; and I, for my part-" He went with hasty steps through the room, and shut the door angrily behind him. Unless Hans Castorp was much mistaken, there had been tears in the mild, beautiful eyes.

He left the other staggered. So long as Joachim had confined himself to putting his determination into words, his cousin had not taken it too seriously. But now that silence spoke for him, and his behaviour too, Hans Castorp was alarmed, for he saw that the military Joachim was the man to translate words into deeds-he was so alarmed that he grew pale, and his pallor was for them both. "Fort possible qu'il va mourir mourir," he thought. And that piece of third-hand information mingled itself with an old, painful, never-quite-to-be-suppressed fear, which made him say to himself: "Is it possible he could leave me alone up here-me, who only came on a visit to him? That would be crazy, horrible; at the bare thought of it I can feel my heart flutter and my cheek pale. Because if if I am left up here-as I shall be, if he goes down, for it is out of the question for me to go with him- I am left up here-as I shall be, if he goes down, for it is out of the question for me to go with him-if I am left up here, it is for ever; alone I should never find my way back. Never back down to the world again. And at the thought my heart stands still." I am left up here, it is for ever; alone I should never find my way back. Never back down to the world again. And at the thought my heart stands still."

Such the course of Hans Castorp's fearful musings. But that very afternoon, cert.i.tude was vouchsafed. Joachim declared himself, the die was cast, the bridgesburnt.

They went down after tea to the bas.e.m.e.nt for the monthly examination. This was the beginning of September. On entering the warm air of the consulting-room, they saw Dr. Krokowski sitting at his table, and the Hofrat, very blue in the face, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, tapping his shoulder with the stethoscope, and yawning at the ceiling. "Mahlzeit, children," said he, languidly. His mood was lax, resigned and melancholic, and he had probably been smoking. There were also, however, some objective grounds for his state, as the cousins had heard: international scandal of a kind only too familiar in the establishment. A certain young girl called Emmy Nolting had entered House Berghof two years before in the autumn, and after a stay of some nine months departed cured. But before September was out she had returned, saying she did not "feel well" at home. In February, with lungs from which all vestige of rhonchi had disappeared, she was sent home again-but by the middle of July was back in her place at Frau Iltis's table. This Emmy, then, had been discovered in her room at one o'clock at night in company with another sufferer, a Greek named Polypraxios, the same whose shapely legs had attracted favourable attention the night of mardi gras- mardi gras-a young chemist whose father owned dye-works in the Piraeus. The discovery had been made through the jealousy of another young girl, a friend of Emmy, who had found her way to Emmy's room by the same route the Greek had taken-namely, across the balconies; and, distracted by her jealous rage, had made great outcry, so that everybody came running, and the scandal became known to the sparrows on the house-tops. Behrens had to send all three of them away; and had been at the moment going over the whole unsavoury affair with Krokowski, who had had both girls under private treatment. The Hofrat, as he examined, continued to let fall remarks, in resigned and dreary tones-for he was such a master of auscultation that he could listen to a man's inside, dictate what he heard to his a.s.sistant, and talk about something else all the time.

"Ah, yes, gentlemen," he said, "this cursed libido. libido. You can get some fun out of the thing, it's all right for you.-Vesicular.-But a man in my position, verily I say unto you-dullness here-he hath his belly full. Is it my fault that phthisis and concupiscence go together-slight harshness here? I didn't arrange it that way; but before you know where you are you find yourself the keeper of a stew-restricted here under the left shoulder. We have psycho-a.n.a.lysis, we give the noodles every chance to talk themselves out-much good it does them! The more they talk the more lecherous they get. I preach mathematics.-Better here, the rhonchi are gone.-I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the l.u.s.ts of the flesh. Lawyer Paravant was a bad case; he took my advice, he is now busy squaring the circle, and gets great relief. But most of them are too witless and lazy, G.o.d help them!-Vesicular.-You see, I know it's only too easy for young folk to go to the bad up here-I used to try to do something about these debauches. But it happened a few times that some brother or bridegroom asked me to my face what affair it was of mine-and since then I've stuck to my last.-Slight rales up on the right." You can get some fun out of the thing, it's all right for you.-Vesicular.-But a man in my position, verily I say unto you-dullness here-he hath his belly full. Is it my fault that phthisis and concupiscence go together-slight harshness here? I didn't arrange it that way; but before you know where you are you find yourself the keeper of a stew-restricted here under the left shoulder. We have psycho-a.n.a.lysis, we give the noodles every chance to talk themselves out-much good it does them! The more they talk the more lecherous they get. I preach mathematics.-Better here, the rhonchi are gone.-I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the l.u.s.ts of the flesh. Lawyer Paravant was a bad case; he took my advice, he is now busy squaring the circle, and gets great relief. But most of them are too witless and lazy, G.o.d help them!-Vesicular.-You see, I know it's only too easy for young folk to go to the bad up here-I used to try to do something about these debauches. But it happened a few times that some brother or bridegroom asked me to my face what affair it was of mine-and since then I've stuck to my last.-Slight rales up on the right."

He finished with Joachim, thrust his stethoscope in the pocket of his smock, and rubbed his eyes with both huge hands, as was his habit when he had "backslidden" and become melancholy. Half mechanically, between yawns, he reeled off his patter: "Well, Ziemssen, just keep your p.e.c.k.e.r up, you'll be all right yet. You aren't like a picture in a physiology-book, there's a hitch here and there, and you haven't cleaned up your Gaffky, you've even gone up a peg or so, it's six this time-but never mind, don't pull a long face, you are better than you were when you came, I can hand it to you in writing. Just another five or six months-monaths, I mean. Did you know that is the earlier form of the word? I mean to say monath monath, after this-"

"Herr Hofrat," Joachim began. He stood bare to the waist, heels together and chest out, with a determined bearing, and as mottled in the face as ever he had been that time when Hans Castorp first made observations on the pallor of the deeply tanned. Behrens ran on without noticing: "-and if you stop another round half year and do particular pipe-clay, why, you'll be a made man, you can take Constantinople singlehanded; you'll be strong enough to command a regiment of Samsons-" Who knows how much more nonsense he might have uttered if Joachim's unflinching determination to make himself heard had not brought him to a stand.

"Herr Hofrat," the young man said, "I should like to tell you, if you will pardon me, that I have decided to leave."

"What's that? So you want to leave? I thought you wanted to go down later as asound man, to be a soldier."

"No, I must leave now, Herr Hofrat, in a week, that is."

"Do you mean what you say? You want to hop out of the frying-pan into the fire? You're going to hook it? Don't you call that desertion?"

"No, Herr Hofrat, I don't look at it in that light. I must join my regiment."

"Even though I tell you I can surely discharge you in half a year, but not before?"

Joachim's bearing became even more correct. He took in his stomach, and replied, repressed and curt: "I have been here a year and a half, Herr Hofrat. I cannot wait any longer. Originally it was to have been three months. Since then it has been increased, first another three, then another six, and so on, and still I am not cured." "Is that my fault?"

"No, Herr Hofrat. But I cannot wait any longer. If I don't want to miss myopportunity, I cannot wait to make my full cure up here. I must go down now. I need alittle time for my equipment and other arrangements."

"Your family knows what you are doing-do they consent?"

"My mother-yes. It is all arranged. The first of October I join the seventy-sixth regiment as cornet."

"At all hazards?" Behrens asked, and fixed him with his bloodshot eyes. "I have the honour," Joachim answered, his lips twitching.

"Very good, Ziemssen." The Hofrat's tone changed; he abandoned his position, he relaxed in every way. "Very well, then. Stir your stumps, go on, and G.o.d be with you. I see you know your own mind, and so much is certainly true, that it is your affair and not mine. Every pot stands on its own bottom. You go at your own risk, I take no responsibility. But good Lord, it may turn out all right. Soldiering is an out-of-doors job. It may do you good, you may come through all right." "Yes, Herr Hofrat."

"Well, and what about your cousin, the peaceful citizen over there? He wants to go along with you, does he?" This was Hans Castorp, who was supposed to answer. He stood there as pale as at that first examination, which had ended by his being admitted as a patient. Now, as then, his heart could be seen hammering against his side. He said: "I should like to be guided by your opinion, Herr Hofrat."

"My opinion. Good." He drew him to him by the arm and began to tap and listen. He did not dictate. It went rather fast. When he finished, he said: "You may go." Hans Castorp stammered: "You-you mean-I am cured?"

"Yes, you are cured. The place above in the left lobe is no longer worth talking about. Your temperature doesn't go with it. Why you have it, I don't know. I a.s.sume it is of no further importance. So far as I am concerned, you can go "

"But-Herr Hofrat-may I ask-that is-you are perhaps not altogether serious?"

"Not serious? Why not? What do you suppose? And incidentally, what do you think of me, might I be allowed to ask? What do you take me for? A bawdy-house keeper?" He was in a towering pa.s.sion. The blood flared up in his cheeks and turned their blue to violet, his one-sided lip was wrenched so high that the canines of the upper jaw were visible. He advanced his head like a steer, with staring, bloodshot watery eves "I won't have it," he bellowed. "In the first place, I'm not the proprietor here! I'm on hire. I'm a doctor! I'm nothing but a doctor, I would give you to understand. I'm not a pimp. I'm no Signor Amoroso on the Toledo, in Napoti bella. Napoti bella. I am a servant of suffering humanity! And if either one of you should perchance have conceived a different opinion of me and my character then you can both go to the devil with my compliments-you can go to the dogs or you can turn up your toes, whichever you like, and a pleasant journey to you!" I am a servant of suffering humanity! And if either one of you should perchance have conceived a different opinion of me and my character then you can both go to the devil with my compliments-you can go to the dogs or you can turn up your toes, whichever you like, and a pleasant journey to you!"

He strode across the room and was out of the door that led to the x-ray waitingroom. It crashed behind him.

The cousins looked imploringly at Dr. Krokowski, who buried his nose in his papers. They hurried into their clothes. On the stair Hans Castorp said: "That was awful. Have you ever seen him like that before?"

"No, not like that. But the authorities sometimes get these attacks. The important thing is to behave with dignity and let them pa.s.s over. He was irritated about the business with Polypraxios and Emmy Nolting. But did you see," Joachim went on, and the joy of having fought and won his battle mounted in him and almost took away his breath, "did you see how he gave in and showed no more fight, directly he saw I was in earnest? All one has to do is to show some pluck, and not let oneself be shouted down. Now I've even got a sort of leave-at least, he said himself I'll probably pull out of it-and I'm travelling in a week-in three weeks I'll be with the colours," he finished, altering his phrase, and confining the joy that trembled in his voice to his own affairs, without reference to Hans Castorp's.

The latter was silent. He spoke no word, either of Joachim's "leave" or his own- which might equally well have been mentioned. He made his preparations for the restcure, put the thermometer in his mouth, flung the camel's-hair rugs about him with swift, practised hand, the perfected technique of that consecrated art the flat-land knows not of; then he lay still, neat as a sausage-roll, in his excellent chair, in the chill dampness of the early autumn afternoon.

The rain-clouds hung low. Remnants of snow rested on the boughs of the silver fir. The banner of the establishment was furled round its staff. A low murmur of voices rose from the rest-hall, whence last year, at much about this time, the voice of Herr Albin had risen to Hans Castorp's ear. The cure was going on, the patients sat there with soon-chilled faces and fingertips. To him all this was long-established habit, the inevitable course of life; he knew the grat.i.tude of the settled patient for the blessing of being able to lie, snugly ensconced, and think everything over at leisure.

So it was settled, Joachim was to go. Rhadamanthus had released him; not rite rite, not with a clean bill of health, yet half approvingly, on the ground, and in recognition, of his constant spirit. He would go down: first with the narrow-gauge road as far as Landquart, then to Romanshorn, then across the wide, bottomless lake, over which in the legend the rider rode, across all Germany, and home. He would stop there, in the valley world, among men with no notion of the way to live, ignorant of "measuring" and of the whole ritual of rug-wrapping, of fur sleeping-sacks, of the three daily walks, of-it was hard to say, hard to count all the things of which those down below stood in blank ignorance; but the mere picture of Joachim, after a year and a half up here, living in the darkness of that flat-landish incomprehension-a picture only of Joachim, with hardly the faintest hypothetical reference to Hans Castorp himself-so bewildered the young man that he closed his eyes and waved it away with a motion of the hand, murmuring: "Impossible!"

And since it was impossible, he would live on up here, alone, without Joachim? Yes, it came to that. How long? Until Behrens discharged him cured-in earnest, that is, not as he had to-day. But that was so indefinite a time-limit that he could no more prophesy it than could Joachim, on a like occasion long ago. Again, would the impossible by then have become any more possible? On the contrary, Joachim's rash departure did-in honesty-offer his cousin a support, now, before the impossible should become utterly so, a guide and companion on a path which of himself he would never, never find again. Ah, if one consulted humanistic pedagogy, how humanistic pedagogy would adjure him to take the hand and accept the offered guidance! But Herr Settembrini was only a representative-of things and forces worth hearing about, it was true, but not the only forces there were. And with Joachim it was the same. He was a soldier. He was leaving-almost at the very time set for the return of the high-breasted one, for it was known that she would return in October. While the departure of the civilian Hans Castorp became impossible precisely because he had to wait for Clavdia Chauchat, whose return, as yet, was not even thought of. "I don't look at it in that light," Joachim had answered when Rhadamanthus talked about desertion-though as far as Joachim was concerned that had probably only been some of the Hofrat's melancholic maundering. But for him, the civilian, the thing was different. For him-ah, here was the right idea, the thought which he had set himself to evolve, as he lay out in the cold and damp-for him the real desertion would lie in his taking advantage of the occasion to dash off unlawfully-or half unlawfully-to the flat-land. It would be the abandonment of certain comprehensive responsibilities which had grown up out of his contemplation of the image called h.o.m.o Dei; h.o.m.o Dei; it would be the betrayal of that appointed task of "stock-taking," that hard and hara.s.sing task, which was really beyond the powers native to him, but yet afforded his spirit such nameless and adventurous joys; that task it was his duty to perform, here in his chair, and up there in his blue-blossoming retreat. it would be the betrayal of that appointed task of "stock-taking," that hard and hara.s.sing task, which was really beyond the powers native to him, but yet afforded his spirit such nameless and adventurous joys; that task it was his duty to perform, here in his chair, and up there in his blue-blossoming retreat.

He tore the thermometer out of his mouth, violently as never before save when the Oberin had sold him the toy and he had first used it. He looked at it with the same avid curiosity now as then. Ah, Mercurius had indeed bounded upwards: he stood at 100.5, almost .6.

Hans Castorp threw off his covers, sprang up and strode to the corridor door and back. Then he lay down again, called softly to Joachim, and asked him what he measured. "I'm not measuring any more," replied his cousin.

"Well, I've some temperament," Hans Castorp said, emulating Frau Stohr; Joachim, behind the gla.s.s pane, answered never a word.

He said no more, on that day or the following; made no effort to find out his cousin's plans-which would, indeed, be driven to declare themselves in no long time, by his either taking certain steps or refraining from them. They did so-by the latter. Hans Castorp seemed to hold with that quietism in whose view all action was an insult to G.o.d, who prefers to act by Himself. At all events, the young man's activity during these days confined itself to a visit to Behrens; a consultation of which Joachim was aware, the result of which he could have accurately predicted beforehand. His cousin had explained that he took the liberty of placing more reliance upon the Hofrat's oft-repeated exhortations to stop up here long enough to perfect his cure than he did upon an ill-considered verdict p.r.o.nounced in the heat of the moment. His temperature was 100.5, one could not regard himself as discharged in form; and unless the Hofrat's recent statement was to be regarded in the light of an expulsion, to which he, the speaker, was not aware he had laid himself open, he wished to say that upon mature consideration he had decided to remain and await the event of a complete cure. To all which the Hofrat had merely responded: "Bon! Werry good-no offence intended, none taken," or words to that effect. That was talking like a sensible man; hadn't he seen first off that Hans Castorp had more talent as a patient than that fire-eater his cousin? And so on.

All of this corresponded pretty accurately to Joachim's guess. He said nothing, only noting in silence that Hans Castorp made no move to join in his preparations for departure. But the good Joachim was busy enough, in all conscience, with his own affairs. He had no more time to concern himself with his cousin's fate or further sojourn. Within his own bosom the tempest raged. It was as well he no longer took his temperature-he had, so he said, let his instrument fall, and broken it-for the thermometer might have given contrary counsel: so fearfully wrought up was he, now darkly glowing, now pale with joyful agitation. He could no longer lie still in the cure; Hans Castorp heard how he went up and down all day in his room, throughout those hours, four times each day, when all over House Berghof the horizontal obtained. A year and a half it had been. And now at last, at last, he was off for the flat-land, for home and his regiment! Even though with only half a discharge. It was no trifling event-Hans Castorp's heart went out to his cousin as he heard his restless pacing. Eighteen months, the wheel full circle and halfway round again, he had lived up here, deep, deep into the life of the place, the inviolable ebb and flow of it, for seven times seventy days; and now he would go down to live among strangers and the uninitiate. What difficulties would he not have, to acclimatize himself? Would it be surprising if Joachim's agitation consisted only in part of joyful emotion, and also in part of dread-if it was not also the pang of parting with all this familiar life that made him stride thus up and down his room? We leave Marusja out of account.