“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 a sound 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 my opportunity, I cannot wait to make my full cure up here. I must go down now. I need a little 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 God 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 assume 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 bawdyhouse keeper?”
He was in a towering passion. 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 eyes.
“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 Napoli 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!”
He strode across the room and was out of the door that led to the X-ray waiting-room. 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 pass over. He was irritated about the business with Polypraxios and
