Hans Castorp stirred his coffee-cup, though there was nothing in it.
“Engineer, Engineer,” said the Italian, and nodded musingly, his black eyes fixed on space, “are you not afraid of the hurricane which is the second circle of the Inferno, and which whirls and whips the offenders after the flesh, those lost unhappy ones who sacrificed their reason to their desire? Gran dio! When I picture you, flapping about in the gale, heels over head—I could almost swoon out of sheer pity, and fall ‘as a dead body falls.’ ”
They laughed, glad that he should be pleased to jest and talk poetry. But Settembrini added: “You remember, Engineer, on the evening of mardi gras, as you sat over your wine, you took your leave of me—yes, in a way, it amounted to that. Well, today it is my turn. You see me, gentlemen, in act to bid you farewell. I am leaving House Berghof.”
The cousins were aghast.
“Impossible! You are joking,” Hans Castorp cried, as he had cried once before, on a like occasion. He was nearly as much startled now as then.
Settembrini answered, in his turn: “Not at all. It is as I tell you. More than that, the news should be to you no news. I once explained to you that in the moment when I became aware that my hope of looking forward to a return to my work within any reasonable time was no longer tenable, in that moment I was settled to strike my tent, so far as this establishment is concerned, and seek in the village a permanent logis. Well—the moment has arrived. I cannot recover, that is settled. I can prolong my days, but only up here. My final sentence is for life—Hofrat Behrens with his customary vivacity has pronounced my doom. Very well, I have drawn the inevitable inference. I have taken new quarters, and am about to remove thither my small earthly possessions, and the tools of my literary craft. It is not far from here, in the Dorf; we shall surely see each other, surely I will not lose sight of you; but as a fellow-guest of this establishment I have the honour to take my leave.”
Such was the announcement Settembrini had made, that Easter Sunday. Both cousins had shown themselves exceedingly upset. They had talked at length and repeatedly with him, on the subject of his resolve; also about how he could carry on the service of the cure even after he left the Berghof; about his taking with him and continuing the great encyclopaedic task he had set himself, that survey of the masterpieces of belles-lettres, from the point of view of human suffering and its elimination; finally, about Herr Settembrini’s future lodging, in the house of a “petty chandler,” as the Italian called him. The chandler, it appeared, let his upper storeys to a Bohemian ladies’-tailor, who in his turn let out lodgings. And now all these arrangements lay in the past. Time had moved steadily on, and brought more than one change in its train. Settembrini had ceased to have residence at the Berghof, he had taken up his abode with Lukaçek, the ladies’ tailor—and that indeed some weeks back. He had not made his exit in a sleigh, but on foot, wearing a short yellow coat, garnished sparsely with fur at the collar and wrists, and accompanied by a man who trundled the earthly and literary baggage of the humanist on a hand-lorry. He pinched one of the dining-room girls in the cheek with the back of two fingers, and went off down the drive, swinging his stick—they watched him go. This, as we said, was well on in April, three-quarters of the month lay in the past. It was still the depth of winter—in their chambers the thermometer registered scarcely more than forty degrees; outside there were fifteen degrees of frost, and if one left one’s inkwell in the loggia, it froze overnight into an icy lump, like a piece of coal. Yet one knew that spring was nigh. There were days when the sun shone, on which one felt in the air its delicate presence. The melting of the snows was at hand, and brought with it certain changes to the Berghof—despite the authority of Hofrat Behrens, despite all he could say, in dining-hall and bedchamber, at every meal, at every visit, at every examination, to combat the prevailing prejudice against the season.
Were they, he asked, up here for the winter sports, or were they patients? And if the latter, what good on earth were snow and ice to them? Had they the notion in their heads that the melting snow was a bad time for them to be here? Nonsense!—it was the best time of all. He could show them that there were relatively fewer bedridden, in the whole valley, at this time than at any other in the year. And there was not a spot in the world that was not less favourable to lung-patients at this season than the one they were in. Anybody with a spark of common sense would stop on, and give himself the benefit of the hardening process which this sort of weather afforded. Then, provided they remained for their appointed time, they would be fully healed, staunch against any rigours of any climate in the world. And so forth. But the prejudice stuck, let him say what he would. The Berghof emptied. Perhaps it was the oncoming spring that got in their bones and upset
