“I see it is being turned out here. Good morning, Herr Hofrat. Then little Leila—”
“Ay,” answered Behrens, and shrugged his shoulders. After a pause for the meaning of the gesture to take effect, he added: “So you paid court to her in form, just before the doors were shut? Decent of you, to take an interest in my lungers, considering you are relatively sound yourself. Shows a pretty trait of character—no, no, don’t be shy, quite a pretty trait. Shall I introduce you a bit here and there, what? I have all sorts of jailbirds in their little cells, if you want to see them. Just now, for instance, I am on my way to visit my ‘Overfilled.’ Want to come? I’ll introduce you as a sympathetic fellow sufferer.”
Hans Castorp replied that the Hofrat had taken the words out of his mouth, and offered him what he was on the point of asking. He would gratefully accept the permission to accompany him; but who was the “Overfilled” and how did Hofrat Behrens mean him to understand the title?
“Quite literally,” said the Hofrat. “Quite exactly, no metaphors. She’ll tell you about herself.” A few paces brought them before the room, and the Hofrat entered, bidding his companion wait.
As the double doors opened, the visitor heard the sound of clear and hearty laughter, which yet sounded short-winded, as though the person within were gasping for breath. Then it was shut away; but he heard it again when, a few minutes later, he was bidden to enter, and Behrens presented him to the blonde lady lying there in bed and looking at him with curiosity out of her blue eyes. She lay half sitting, supported by pillows, and seemed very restless; she laughed incessantly, struggling the while for breath: a high, purling, silver laughter, as though her plight excited or amused her. She was amused too, very likely, by the Hofrat’s turns of phrase in introducing the visitor, and called out repeated thanks and goodbyes as he went off; waved her hand at his departing back; sighed melodiously, with runs of silver merriment, and pressed her hand against her heaving breast under the batiste nightgown. Her legs, it seemed, were never still.
The lady’s name was Frau Zimmermann. Hans Castorp knew her by sight; she had sat for some weeks at the table with Frau Salomon and the lad who bolted his food; then she had disappeared, and so far as Hans Castorp may have troubled about it, he supposed that she had gone home. Now he found her again, under the name of the “Overfilled,” and awaited an explanation.
“Ha ha, ha ha!” she carolled, in high glee, holding her fluttering bosom. “Frightfully funny man, is Behrens; killingly funny, makes you die of laughing. But sit down, Herr Kasten, or Garsten, or whatever your name is; you have such a funny name—ha ha, ha ha! You must please excuse me; do sit down on that chair near my feet, but please don’t mind if I thrash about with my legs, I cannot help it.”
She was almost pretty, with clear-cut, rather too well-defined though agreeable features, and a tiny double chin. Her lips and even the tip of her nose were blue, probably from lack of air. Her hands had an appealing thinness; the laces of the nightdress set them off; but she could keep them quiet no more than her feet. Her throat was like a girl’s, with “saltcellars” above the delicate collarbones; and her breast, heaving and struggling under the nightgown with her laughter and gasping breaths, looked tender and young. Hans Castorp decided to send or bring her flowers, a bouquet from the nurseries of Nice and Cannes, dewy and fragrant. With some misgiving he joined in her breathless and volatile mirth.
“And so you go round visiting the fever cases?” she asked. “That’s very amusing and friendly of you! But I’m not a fever case; that is, I wasn’t in the least, until just now—until this business—listen, and tell me if it isn’t just the funniest thing you ever heard in all your life!” And wrestling for air, amid trills and roulades of laughter, she related her story.
She had come up a little ill—well, ill, of course, for otherwise she would not have come; perhaps not quite a slight case, but rather slight than grave. The pneumothorax, that newest triumph of modern surgical technique, so rapidly become popular, had been brilliantly successful in her case. She made most gratifying progress, her condition was entirely satisfactory. Her husband—for she was married, though childless—might hope to have her home again in three or four months. Then, to divert herself, she made a trip to Zürich—there had been no other reason for her going, save simply to amuse herself—she had amused herself to her heart’s content, but found herself overtaken by the need to be “filled up” again and entrusted the business to a physician where she was. A nice, amusing young man—but what was the result? Here she was overtaken by a perfect paroxysm of laughter. He had filled her too full! There were no other words to describe it, that said it all. He had meant too well by her, he had probably not too well understood the technique; the long and short of it was, in that condition, not able to breathe, suffering from cardiac depression, she had come back—ah, ha, ha, ha! and Behrens, cursing and storming with a vengeance, had stuck her into bed. For now she was ill indeed, not actually in high fever, but finished, done, made a mess of—oh, what a face he was making, how funny he looked, ha, ha, ha! She pointed at Hans Castorp and laughed so hard that even her
