The conversation did not run upon their home below, there was no reference to family or personal, business or city affairs, nor yet to the firm of Tunder and Wilms, Shipbuilders, Smelters, and Machinists, who were still waiting for their apprentice—though it was likely they had too much else to do to be aware that they were waiting. James Tienappel had touched, of course, on these topics, during their drive and after, but they had fallen flat; no one had picked them up. They had bounded off, as it were, from Hans Castorp’s serene, unfeigned, unmistakable sangfroid, which was like a suit of armour; like his indifference to the chill of that autumn evening, like his little phrase “We don’t feel the cold.” This air of his may have been the reason why his uncle looked at him so fixedly. They spoke of the Oberin and the doctors, of Dr. Krokowski’s lectures, at one of which James would be present if he stopped a week. Who had told the nephew the uncle would wish to be present? Nobody—he had simply assumed it, with such tranquil certitude as to render absurd the bare idea of not being present, which, accordingly, James hastened to disclaim with a quick “Certainly, of course,” as though anxious to show he had never for a moment considered it. It was this very power, quiet yet compelling, that caused Consul Tienappel all unconsciously to gaze at his nephew; and now even open-mouthed, for he found his nasal passages obstructed, though, so far as he knew, he had no catarrh. He heard his relative hold forth upon the disease which was the business of life up here, and upon the receptivity commonly displayed for it; upon Hans Castorp’s own simple but tedious case, upon the attraction the bacilli had for the cellular tissue of the air passages of the throat, bronchial tubes, and pulmonary vesicles; upon the formation of nodules, the manifestation of soluble toxins and their narcotic effect upon the system; of the breaking-down of the tissues, of caseation, and the question whether the disease would be arrested by a chalky petrefaction and heal by means of fibrosis, or whether it would extend the area, create still larger cavities, and destroy the organ. He was told of the “galloping” form the disease sometimes assumed, which made the end an affair of not more than a few months or even weeks; of pneumotomy, of the Hofrat’s masterly surgery, of resection of the lungs, an operation which was to be performed tomorrow or the day after upon a severe case just brought to the sanitorium, a charming, or once-charming Scotswoman suffering from gangroena pulmonum, gangrene of the lungs, a green and black pestilence, which obliged her to inhale all day a vaporized solution of carbolic acid, lest she go out of her head from sheer physical disgust. Here, suddently, the Consul, to his own great surprise and chagrin, burst out laughing. He fairly snorted, but recovered himself immediately, horrified; coughed, and tried his best to disguise the senseless outbreak. He felt a relief, which however bore within it the seeds of fresh disquiet, when he saw that Hans Castorp paid no heed, though he must have noticed the incident, but passed it over with an unconcern which was not so much tact, consideration, or courtesy, as it was the purest indifference, an uncanny invulnerability or complaisance, as though he had long ceased to notice or to feel surprise at such occurrences. Perhaps the Consul wished to make his burst of hilarity appear plausible; perhaps he had some other connection in mind; at all events, he abruptly took over the conversation and began talking like a club-man. The veins stood out on his forehead, as he described a chansonette by a certain café-chantant artiste, a perfectly crazy piece of goods, who was then on the boards at St. Pauli, taking away the breath of his Hamburg fellow-males by her temperamental charms, which he essayed to describe to his cousin. His tongue was a little thick, though that need not have troubled him, since his cousin’s strange complaisance seemed to cover this phenomenon like the other. But his weariness became at length so overpowering that the meeting broke up at about half past ten, and he was scarcely capable of attending when he was introduced to the oft-mentioned Dr. Krokowski, who sat reading a newspaper near the door of one of the salons. He responded little else than “Certainly, of
