The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

  “Fine, let’s go!” Hans Castorp said, tossing his blankets aside. He went back into the room to run a brush through his hair; as he did, Joachim took another look at the thermometer on the washstand—and Hans Castorp watched him from a distance. They left, not saying a word, and took their places in the dining hall, which, as always at this hour, glistened white from all the milk.

  When the dwarf brought Hans Castorp his Kulmbach beer, he refused it with some seriousness. He would rather not drink beer today—wanted nothing at all, thanks, at most a little water. This caused a general stir. What was this? What innovations were these? Why no beer?—He had a slight temperature, Hans Castorp remarked casually—ninety-nine point seven, insignificant.

  And now they wagged their forefingers, cautioning him—it was all very curious. They began to tease him, laying heads to one side, winking, and putting fingers up to their ears, as if these were racy, risqué revelations about someone who had played the innocent until now. “Now, now, my friend,” the teacher said, laughing as she chided him, her downy cheeks turning red. “What pretty goings-on—sowing his oats. Just wait and see.”

  “My, my, my,” Frau Stöhr said, admonishing him with a stubby red finger waved in the vicinity of her nose. “So Mr. Visitor has a little temp himself. Look at you—what a fine fellow you turn out to be, quite the gay blade.”

  And when the news reached the great-aunt at the other end of the table, even she made a sly joke of chiding him; pretty Marusya, who had paid him barely any attention before now, bent forward to look at him, her orange-scented handkerchief pressed to her lips, and reprimanded him with her brown, round eyes. And Dr. Blumenkohl, too, who heard of it now from Frau Stöhr, could not help joining in the general reaction—not that he looked directly at Hans Castorp. Only Miss Robinson, closed off to the world as always, appeared indifferent. Joachim behaved with perfect propriety and kept his eyes lowered.

  Hans Castorp, flattered by so much teasing, felt that modesty required him to demur. “No, no,” he said, “you’re mistaken, my case is the most harmless imaginable. I have the sniffles. As you can see: my eyes are watery, my chest is congested, I coughed half the night away—that’s quite unpleasant enough.”

  But they would not accept his explanations. They laughed, they waved this off, they cried: “Yes, yes, yes. No fibbing, no excuses, we know all about sniffles and fever, know all about it.” And then all of a sudden they demanded that Hans Castorp immediately make an appointment to be examined. His news had animated them; the conversation at their breakfast table was livelier than at any of the other six.

  Frau Stöhr in particular became wildly talkative, and her willful face, its cheeks lined with tiny wrinkles, turned scarlet above her ruffled collar. She expatiated on the pleasures of coughing—yes, there was something perfectly delightful and enjoyable about a tickle in the depths of your chest, that got worse and worse until you reached down deep for it, squeezing and pressing to let it have its way. Sneezing was just as much fun—the way you felt it swelling up with a vengeance inside you, until it became irresistible and you breathed in and out in one great frenzy, gave yourself over to the bliss of it, your face drunk with pleasure—you could forget the whole world in one blessed eruption. But sometimes they came in twos and threes, one right after the other. Those were the pleasures in life that didn’t cost a cent—it was the same, for example, with scratching your chilblains in the spring, when they itched so deliciously—and you scratched away fervently and brutally until you drew blood, just for the mad pleasure of it. And if you happened to see yourself in the mirror, there was a little demon looking back at you.

  Obtuse Frau Stöhr went on and on in this way with ghastly thoroughness until the brief, if ample meal was over. The cousins now stepped out for their second walk that morning, a stroll down to Davos-Platz—Joachim was lost in thought the whole way. Hans Castorp groaned with the agony of his cold, and his rusty chest wheezed.

  On the way home Joachim said, “Let me make a suggestion. Today is Friday—I have my monthly checkup tomorrow morning after dinner. It’s not a complete physical, but Behrens pounds around a little on you and has Krokowski jot down some notes. You could come along and ask him to use the occasion for a quick listen to you. It’s really absurd—if you were at home, you would send for Heidekind. And here, with two specialists in the house, you run around and don’t know what to think, unsure how deep the problem sits, and whether it might not be better to take to your bed.”

  “Fine,” Hans Castorp said. “Whatever you think. Of course I can do that. And I’d find it interesting to be present at a checkup, too.”

  And so they came to an understanding; and as chance would have it, upon their arrival at the sanatorium they ran into Director Behrens himself and took the opportunity to present their request on the spot.

  Behrens was just emerging from the portico—tall, with protruding neck vertebrae, a bowler shoved to the back of his head, a cigar in his mouth, purple-cheeked and pop-eyed; he was at full swing in his daily routine, about to attend to his private practice and make calls in town, having just been on the job in the operating room, as he declared.

  “Greetings, gentlemen!” he said. “Out hoofing it, I see? Having a grand time out there in the big, wide world? I’ve just come from a lopsided duel with knives and bone saws—great stuff, rib resections. Used to be that a good fifty percent of them would be left on the operating table. We’ve got it down better now, but it still happens often enough that we have to pack our bags mortis causa. Well, the fellow today knew how to take a joke, and he put up a good fight for a while. Crazy sight, a human thorax that isn’t one anymore. Mushy spots, you know, quite unseemly, a slight fuzziness of the ideal, so to speak. Well, and how about you? How are your admirable constitutions doing? Life really is more festive as a twosome, don’t you think, Ziemssen, you sly old dog? But why the tears, my good excursionist?” he said, turning now to Hans Castorp. “Tears are not allowed in public here. The rules of the house forbid it. Why, everybody would be in tears if we let them.”

  “It’s sniffles, Director Behrens,” Hans Castorp replied. “I don’t know how it could have happened, but I’ve caught a nasty cold. I’ve got a cough, too, and a lot of congestion here in the chest.”

  “Really? I would suggest you consult a doctor.”

  They both laughed, and clicking his heels, Joachim responded, “We were just about to do that, Director Behrens. I have my checkup tomorrow, and we wanted to ask if you would be so kind as to fit my cousin in at the same time. We’re concerned whether he will be well enough to travel on Tuesday.”

  “N. s. s. t. d.!” Behrens said. “No sooner said than done. With pleasure. Should have done it long ago. Once you’re up here, you might as well take advantage of the place. But, of course, we didn’t want to seem pushy about it. So there’ll be two of you tomorrow, right after you’ve put on the feed bag.”

  “Because I do have a little fever, too,” Hans Castorp added.

  “You don’t say!” Behrens exclaimed. “And I suppose you think that’s news to me, do you? Do you think I don’t have eyes in my head?” And he pointed with one massive forefinger at his own two bloodshot, watery, protruding blue eyes. “How high is it, then?”

  Hans Castorp modestly supplied the numbers.

  “In the morning? Hmm, not bad. Not at all untalented for a beginner. Well, then, you can fall in, two by two, tomorrow. It will be an honor. And now, do go in and savor your taking of nourishment.” And with knees slightly bent and rowing with his hands, he began to trudge downhill, a trail of cigar smoke billowing behind him.

  “Well, it’s all arranged just as you wanted,” Hans Castorp said. “We couldn’t have struck it luckier, and so now I have an appointment. He probably won’t be able to do anything more for me than prescribe some licorice syrup or a tea for my cough, but all the same it’s nice to have a little medical advice when you feel as bad as I do. But why does he always rattle on in that overenergetic, peppy sort
of way?” he said. “At first I rather liked it, but after being here awhile, I can’t say I enjoy it. ‘Savor your taking of nourishment!’—what sort of gibberish is that? You can say ‘enjoy your meal,’ or even ‘bon appétit’ has a nice ring to it when you’re sitting down to your daily bread. But ‘taking of nourishment’ is basic physiology, and to tell someone to ‘savor’ it is pure sarcasm. I don’t like to see him smoking, either, it makes me uneasy somehow, because I know it’s not good for him and makes him melancholy. Settembrini says his merriment is forced, and Settembrini has a critical eye, is a man who forms his own opinions, one must grant him that much. I should perhaps form my opinions more, and not take everything just as it comes—he’s right about that. But sometimes a person begins with opinions and judgments and valid criticism, but then things creep in that have nothing to do with forming opinions, and then it’s all over with strict logic, and what you end up with is an absurd world republic and beautiful style.” And he continued to mutter on, although he did not appear quite sure what it was he meant to say.

  His cousin merely gave him a sidelong glance and said, “Till later.” Each then went to his room and sat out on his balcony.

  “How high?” Joachim asked in a low voice after a while, although he had not actually seen Hans Castorp consult his thermometer.

  And Hans Castorp replied nonchalantly, “Nothing new.”

  In actuality, no sooner had he entered his room than he had picked up his recent fragile purchase from the washstand, given it a few vertical shakes to erase the 99.7, which had served its purpose now, and with the glass cigar in his mouth had taken to his rest cure like an old hand. But despite his rather soaring expectations and although he held the instrument under his tongue for a full eight minutes, Mercury stretched himself again just to 99.7, but no farther—which was indeed a fever, but no higher than it had been earlier that morning. After dinner, the little column rose to 99.9, but that evening, when the patient was very tired after all the excitement and novelty of the day, it held at 99.5, and by the next morning was even down to 98.6, only to return by noon to the high of the previous day. And that was how things stood as the hour neared for the day’s main meal and, once it was over, his appointed rendezvous.

  Hans Castorp remembered later that at dinner that day Madame Chauchat had worn a golden yellow sweater with large buttons and pockets trimmed with braid—a new sweater, or new at least to Hans Castorp, as he watched her make her entrance, late as always, and, just as he had come to expect, stand there at attention, facing the dining hall for a moment. Then, as she did five times every day, she had glided to her table, taken her seat in a soft, fluid motion, and begun to eat, while chatting with her neighbors. And as always Hans Castorp had glanced past Settembrini—who sat with his back to him at one end of the intervening crosswise table—to get a view of the Good Russian table; this time, however, he had paid particular notice to the way her head moved as she spoke, to the arch of her neck and the limp posture of her back. As for Frau Chauchat, she had not turned to look around the dining hall even once during the entire meal. But when they had all finished dessert, and the tall clock, a pendulum and chain affair at the far end of the room on the right, struck two, it had happened—much to Hans Castorp’s puzzlement and shock. For as the clock struck, once, then twice, the charming patient had slowly turned her head, and a little of her upper body, too, to gaze plainly and openly over her shoulder at Hans Castorp’s table—and not just at the table in general, no, quite unmistakably and very personally at him, a smile playing on her closed lips and in her narrow Pribislav eyes, as if to say: “Well? It’s time. Are you going to go, Hans?” (Because when only the eyes speak, things become quite informal, although her mouth had never even once said “Herr Castorp.”) The incident had confused and shocked Hans Castorp to the depths of his soul; he had barely been able to believe his eyes and had first gaped in stupefaction at Frau Chauchat’s face, and then, raising his gaze above her brow and hair, had stared into space. Had she known that he had made an appointment for an examination at two o’clock? It had certainly looked that way. And yet that seemed quite as unlikely as her knowing that he had just asked himself, not a minute before, whether he should not have Joachim tell the director that his cold was already better and that he now thought the examination superfluous—a new plan whose advantages had withered beneath her inquisitive smile and that had suddenly become disgustingly boring. Barely a second later, Joachim had placed his rolled-up napkin on the table, signaled with raised eyebrows, bowed to the others, and left the table—and Hans Castorp, still sensing both eyes and smile directed at him, had followed his cousin out. His step was firm, his mind was reeling.

  They had not spoken to one another about the day’s plan since yesterday morning, and even now walked on by tacit agreement. Joachim was in a hurry—he was already late for his appointment, and Director Behrens insisted on punctuality. The way led from the dining hall, along the ground-floor corridor, past “management,” and down the freshly waxed linoleum stairs to the “basement.” Joachim knocked on a door directly opposite the stairway—a porcelain sign declared it to be the entrance to the consulting room.

  “Come in!” Behrens called, with a strong emphasis on the first word. He was standing in the middle of the room; he had on his smock and in his right hand he held a stethoscope—which he patted now against his thigh.

  “Chop-chop!” he said, directing his pop-eyes at the wall clock. “Un poco più presto, Signori. We’re not here exclusively to serve you, good sirs.”

  At the double desk beside the window sat Dr. Krokowski, looking pale against his shiny black smock—elbows propped on the desktop, a pen in one hand, the other buried in his beard. There were papers spread out before him, the patient’s records presumably, and as the two men entered, he looked up at them with the dulled expression of a distinguished personage who is there merely to assist.

  “Well, hand over your report card,” the director said in reply to Joachim’s apologies. He accepted the temperature chart and looked it over while his patient quickly undressed above the waist and hung his garments on a clothes stand next to the door. No one paid attention to Hans Castorp. He stood there awhile, watching, but then sat down in an old-fashioned easy chair that had tassels on the arms and was placed next to a table with a carafe of water. Along the walls were bookcases filled with broad-spined medical works and bundles of records. There was no other furniture apart from a chaise longue, which could be cranked up or down and was covered with white oilcloth, except for a paper towel laid over the headrest.

  “Point seven, point nine, point eight,” Behrens said, paging through the week’s chart, where Joachim had faithfully recorded the results of the measurements he took five times a day. “Still on the lambent side, my good Ziemssen, can’t exactly say you’ve gotten any sturdier of late.” (“Of late” meant in the last four weeks.) “Still toxic, still toxic,” he said. “Well, it doesn’t happen from one day to the next—we’re not sorcerers here, you know.”

  Joachim nodded and gave a shrug of his bare shoulders, although he might have protested that he hadn’t arrived up here only the day before.

  “And how is that little twinge in the right hilum, where it always sounds a little aggravated? Better? Well, come here. Let’s give you a few polite thumps.” And the auscultation began.

  Spreading his legs, leaning back slightly, and wedging his stethoscope under one arm, Director Behrens first tapped high up on Joachim’s right shoulder, flicking his right hand at the wrist so that the massive middle finger worked as a hammer, while the left hand provided support. Then he moved below the shoulder blade and thumped down the side of the middle and lower ribs; Joachim, well trained in all this, now lifted an arm and let him tap just below the armpit. And then the whole procedure was repeated on the left side; and having finished with that, the director ordered, “ ‘Bout face!” so that he could thump away at the chest. He tapped just below the neck at the collarbone, tapped above
and below the breasts, first on the right, then the left. And when he had pounded to his satisfaction, he moved on to listening; putting one end of his stethoscope to his ear and placing the other end against Joachim’s chest and back, he now shifted it everywhere he had already tapped. Meanwhile, Joachim was required to alternate between deep breaths and coughs, which appeared to tax him a great deal, because he was soon out of breath and tears came to his eyes. Director Behrens, however, reported to his assistant at the desk everything he heard there inside, speaking in curt, prescribed terminology, so that Hans Castorp could not help being reminded of the procedure at the tailor’s, when a well-dressed gentleman takes your measurements for a suit, laying the tape measure in a traditional sequence here and there across your torso and along your limbs, and then dictates the resulting numbers to his assistant, who sits there bent over pen and paper. “Shallow . . . diminished,” Director Behrens dictated. “Vesicular,” he said, then once more, “vesicular”—that was good, evidently. “Rough,” he said and made a face. “Very rough . . . rattle.” And Dr. Krokowski entered it all like the tailor’s helper recording numbers.

  Tilting his head forward and to one side, Hans Castorp followed the whole procedure, but was soon lost in thought as he regarded Joachim’s upper body, the way the ribs—thank God he still had all his ribs—rose under the taut skin while the stomach fell with each breath he took. It was a slender, yellowish-brown, youthful torso, with black hair at the breastbone and along the still powerful arms, one of which was encircled at the wrist by a gold bracelet. “A gymnast’s arms,” Hans Castorp thought. “He always did enjoy gymnastics, whereas I didn’t care much for them, and that was all part of his wanting to become a soldier. He always was concerned about his body, much more than I, or at least in a different way than I, because I was always the civilian, and more interested in a nice warm bath and good food and drink, when what he wanted were challenges and exploits. And now his body has stepped to the fore, but in a totally different way, declaring its independence and putting on airs—by means of illness. He’s lambent, still toxic, and doesn’t seem to get any sturdier, no matter how much he wants to be a soldier in the flatlands. Look at him, a perfect adult male, an absolute Apollo Belvedere, to a T. But inside, Joachim is ill, and outside he’s too warm—because of illness. Illness makes people even more physical, turns them into only a body.” And he was so taken aback by the thought that he rapidly shifted his searching glance from Joachim’s naked upper torso to his eyes, to his large, black, gentle eyes, with tears in them from all the forced coughs and deep breaths of the examination. Those eyes were gazing mournfully now beyond his audience, into space.