dreadful, I must say. Gray wool socks—and then those sandals. Was he offended there at the end?”
“He’s a little sensitive,” Joachim admitted. “You shouldn’t have been so brusque about rejecting medical treatment, at least not the psychological part. He doesn’t like for people to try to avoid it. He’s not all that well disposed toward me, either, because I don’t confide enough in him. But now and then I do tell him a dream, so that he’ll have something to dissect.”
“Then I really did rub him the wrong way just now,” Hans Castorp said with annoyance, for it always upset him when he offended someone; and now weariness overcame him with renewed intensity as well.
“Good night,” he said. “I’m ready to drop.”
“I’ll come by for you for breakfast at eight,” Joachim said and left.
Hans Castorp hastily went through the motions of getting ready for bed. No sooner had he turned out the lamp on his nightstand than sleep overwhelmed him—but he started up again when he recalled that someone had died in that very bed only two nights before. “Not for the first time, either,” he told himself, as if that might serve to reassure him. “It’s just a deathbed, an ordinary deathbed.” And he dozed off.
But as soon as he was asleep, he began to dream and kept on dreaming almost nonstop until morning. Most of the time he saw Joachim Ziemssen, in a strangely contorted position, riding down a steep slope on a bobsled. He was as phosphorescently pale as Dr. Krokowski, and up front sat the Austrian horseman, steering, although the face was very vague, like that of someone you’ve only heard cough. “It really doesn’t matter to us—to us up here,” the contorted Joachim said, and now it was he, and not the horseman, who was coughing in that ghastly, slimy way. And this made Hans Castorp weep bitterly, and he realized that he would have to run to the pharmacist to get himself some cold cream. But Frau Iltis was sitting beside the road, a roguish pucker on her face, and she was holding something in her hand that was supposed to be her “stirletto,” but was really nothing more than a safety razor. That only made Hans Castorp laugh again, and so he was tossed back and forth by waves of emotion until the dawn came to the half-open balcony door and awakened him.
CHAPTER 2
THE BAPTISMAL BOWL/GRANDFATHER IN HIS TWO FORMS
Hans Castorp retained only faint recollections of his actual parental home; he had hardly known his father and mother. They had both dropped dead within the brief period between his fifth and seventh years of life. His mother had died first, quite unexpectedly, while awaiting the birth of a second child, of an arterial blockage caused by phlebitis, an embolism, Dr. Heidekind had called it, triggering instantaneous cardiac paralysis—she had been sitting up in bed, laughing, and it looked as if she simply toppled over in a fit of laughter, whereas in fact she did it because she was dead. It was not something that Hans Hermann Castorp, the father, found easy to understand, and since he had been very fond of his wife and was not the most robust man himself, he simply did not know how to get over it. From then on, his mind was muddled, his focus narrow; and in his befuddlement he made mistakes in his business, resulting in serious losses for the firm of Castorp and Son. While inspecting a harbor warehouse on a windy day the following spring, he caught pneumonia, and since, despite all the conscientious attention given him by Dr. Heidekind, his already agitated heart could not hold out against the high fever, he, too, was dead within five days. Escorted by a quite respectable number of his fellow citizens, he joined his wife in the Castorp family grave, a very beautiful plot in the cemetery of Saint Catherine’s Church, with a view to the botanical gardens.
His own father, the senator, survived him, if only by a little, and during the brief period until his death—likewise caused
“He’s a little sensitive,” Joachim admitted. “You shouldn’t have been so brusque about rejecting medical treatment, at least not the psychological part. He doesn’t like for people to try to avoid it. He’s not all that well disposed toward me, either, because I don’t confide enough in him. But now and then I do tell him a dream, so that he’ll have something to dissect.”
“Then I really did rub him the wrong way just now,” Hans Castorp said with annoyance, for it always upset him when he offended someone; and now weariness overcame him with renewed intensity as well.
“Good night,” he said. “I’m ready to drop.”
“I’ll come by for you for breakfast at eight,” Joachim said and left.
Hans Castorp hastily went through the motions of getting ready for bed. No sooner had he turned out the lamp on his nightstand than sleep overwhelmed him—but he started up again when he recalled that someone had died in that very bed only two nights before. “Not for the first time, either,” he told himself, as if that might serve to reassure him. “It’s just a deathbed, an ordinary deathbed.” And he dozed off.
But as soon as he was asleep, he began to dream and kept on dreaming almost nonstop until morning. Most of the time he saw Joachim Ziemssen, in a strangely contorted position, riding down a steep slope on a bobsled. He was as phosphorescently pale as Dr. Krokowski, and up front sat the Austrian horseman, steering, although the face was very vague, like that of someone you’ve only heard cough. “It really doesn’t matter to us—to us up here,” the contorted Joachim said, and now it was he, and not the horseman, who was coughing in that ghastly, slimy way. And this made Hans Castorp weep bitterly, and he realized that he would have to run to the pharmacist to get himself some cold cream. But Frau Iltis was sitting beside the road, a roguish pucker on her face, and she was holding something in her hand that was supposed to be her “stirletto,” but was really nothing more than a safety razor. That only made Hans Castorp laugh again, and so he was tossed back and forth by waves of emotion until the dawn came to the half-open balcony door and awakened him.
CHAPTER 2
THE BAPTISMAL BOWL/GRANDFATHER IN HIS TWO FORMS
Hans Castorp retained only faint recollections of his actual parental home; he had hardly known his father and mother. They had both dropped dead within the brief period between his fifth and seventh years of life. His mother had died first, quite unexpectedly, while awaiting the birth of a second child, of an arterial blockage caused by phlebitis, an embolism, Dr. Heidekind had called it, triggering instantaneous cardiac paralysis—she had been sitting up in bed, laughing, and it looked as if she simply toppled over in a fit of laughter, whereas in fact she did it because she was dead. It was not something that Hans Hermann Castorp, the father, found easy to understand, and since he had been very fond of his wife and was not the most robust man himself, he simply did not know how to get over it. From then on, his mind was muddled, his focus narrow; and in his befuddlement he made mistakes in his business, resulting in serious losses for the firm of Castorp and Son. While inspecting a harbor warehouse on a windy day the following spring, he caught pneumonia, and since, despite all the conscientious attention given him by Dr. Heidekind, his already agitated heart could not hold out against the high fever, he, too, was dead within five days. Escorted by a quite respectable number of his fellow citizens, he joined his wife in the Castorp family grave, a very beautiful plot in the cemetery of Saint Catherine’s Church, with a view to the botanical gardens.
His own father, the senator, survived him, if only by a little, and during the brief period until his death—likewise caused
Similar Books
