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Part 4, Chapter 10: The Thermometer
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Magic Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time
Coming of Age
Death and Illness
East vs. West
Abstract Ideals vs. Lived Experience
Summary
Analysis
The narrator notes that the next three weeks of Hans’s stay at the Berghof will require about as many lines or even words as his first three weeks required pages—this is just how “the laws of narrative,” which play with the passage of time, work. Time passes quickly, after all, when one is a bedridden patient. And that’s what Hans has been, per Behrens’s orders.
Once more, the narration focuses on the malleable experience of time. Here, the narrator explicitly notes how “the laws of narrative”—that is, the genre conventions that dictate how one tells a story—are designed to mimic this malleable, subjective experience, spending more pages describing time that seems to drag on and fewer pages describing time that flies by.
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Joachim leaves Hans alone for a day, but on Sunday he comes to his room to ask him about what they should do with the people who are expecting Hans back home. Hans says it’s not a big deal—they’re not expecting him on any particular day. Joachim feels bad—he fears Hans would never have gotten sick if he hadn’t come to visit him. Hans thinks this is ridiculous. He came here for a vacation, and he clearly needed one. And he can’t be the first person this has happened to who’s come here. He thinks that illness probably even runs in the family. Anyway, Hans trusts Behrens, and there’s no point in fearing the worst until he has his X-rays done. Hans is still convinced he’ll be leaving here shortly.
Hans’s reaction to his sudden change of plans is strangely—and, indeed, comically—casual. He was slated to start work when he returned home, after all. What’s more, his sudden trust in Behrens is a far cry from the skepticism he expressed just days before in the doctor’s ability to cure his patients. It’s also curious that Hans, who has repeatedly encountered patients (including Joachim) whose release Behrens has pushed back by months, is so confident he’ll be leaving the Berghof shortly. Whether Hans is in denial or simply woefully naïve about his situation remains unclear.
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Hans takes his meals in bed on Sunday, and Joachim reports back to him about everything that happened that day, including Krokowski’s bi-weekly lecture. Today, he talked about love again, but this time in terms of “basic chemistry”—about a living thing poisoning itself with substances it kept inside the body. Eventually it's Tuesday—the day Hans was originally supposed to leave. Behrens determines that Hans will have to stay longer and that he’ll have more information as soon as possible. Hans writes a letter home to explain the situation and feels content, though still sick.
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Each day now, an attendant knocks on Hans’s door, addressing him by his room number (34) and rubbing him down with alcohol. His meals are the same elaborate feasts he enjoyed downstairs, though he now takes them in bed. Krokowski visits Hans during his regular afternoon rounds. This first happens on Monday, and it takes Hans by surprise. Krokowski addresses Hans as “comrade” and informs him that the moist spot in his lungs isn’t merely an “organic” problem. Organic problems, the doctor explains, are always symptoms of different, deeper-seated problems. In time, Hans is no longer bothered by Krokowski’s visits. Time, too, begins to pass more quickly for him, with afternoons seamlessly fading into evenings.
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One day, around 10 or 12 days since Hans first became bedridden, Settembrini comes to visit. He turns on the overhead light as he steps into Hans’s room and declares Hans a “poor fellow.” Hans thinks this is rather arrogant—surely he’ll be well and on his way out of here before Settembrini. He asks Hans how he’s doing and then remarks with some amusement on Hans’s choice to let them examine him just before he was set to leave. He also notes Hans’s decision to start keeping track of his temperature before anyone ordered him to do so. Hans jokes along, recalling with some amusement the names by which Settembrini referred to Behrens and Krokowski on Hans’s first day at the Berghof—Rhadamanthus and Minos, two judges of hell.
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Settembrini jokes darkly about a patient whom the doctors made sicker than she was before she first arrived at the Berghof. Hans laughs this off but assures Settembrini that Behrens did indeed identify some cavities in Hans’s lungs. Settembrini gleefully replies that sometimes spots that appear to be cavities are merely shadows, and other times real problems don’t show up at all. Finally Hans convinces the man that he is, in fact, truly ill.
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After Settembrini asks about his family back home who may be concerned for him, Hans initially speaks favorably of his homeland, but then he goes on a rambling tangent about the comparative crudeness of life “down there” compared to up at the Berghof. Settembrini lets Hans speak until he trails off, then he sighs and cautions Hans about how every young person who stays here for any extended period of time ultimately becomes “lost to life,” unable to do anything but muck about and take their temperature. They become incapable of living any other sort of life.
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Settembrini remembers one man who got to go home. But upon his arrival, he immediately took to bed and did nothing but take his temperature all day. He claimed, to his frustrated family, that only people who’d lived “up there” would understand. His mother ordered him to go back “up there” then, and so he did—he returned to his “home.” Hans only half listens to this story, though, and dismisses it as another of Settembrini’s meaningless stories. He redirects the subject to his earlier idea about the harsh cruelty of life “down there” and rattles on about that some more, and about his illness. He decides it makes sense that he’s ill now, as he has always felt rather weak. He also thinks that maybe his parents’ early deaths made him more aware of the inherent cruelty of life than other people are.
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Settembrini lets Hans speak until he trails off, then he gives him some advice, and this time he does so in a grave tone, offering Hans no opportunity to interject or joke. The only “religious” and dignified way to think of death, Settembrini cautions, is as continuous with life—not to separate it from life or think of it as “in opposition to life.” He cites ancient religions who knew how to properly “honor” death. But once one separates death from life, it becomes “grotesque,” a “depraved force” that can confuse impressionable minds. He compares this relationship to the earlier argument he and Hans had about the combination of sickness and stupidity, and he pleads with Hans to let him continue to instruct him and to correct some of Hans’s flawed ideas about life.
Suddenly Joachim walks in, interrupting Hans and Settembrini. Hans laughs and explains that Settembrini has been helping him “pass the time.” After Settembrini leaves, Hans remarks on what a “pedagogue” the man is. He’s sure he’d never have understood a word of what Settembrini says if they’d met down below.
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Time passes. Hans didn’t bring a calendar with him when he initially traveled to see Joachim, and so he has trouble keeping track of the exact date. Now, he has only the concerts that happen every other Sunday to mark the passage of time. Meanwhile, the weather turns summery once more, and Joachim expresses his remorse that Hans, still bedridden, is unable to join him outside to enjoy the sun. But then, toward the end of Behrens’s recommended period of bedrest for Hans, the weather turns gloomy once more. When Behrens examines Hans to determine whether he’s well enough to leave, Hans asks him if he’s well enough to get up. Behrens seems surprised at the question but gives him permission to at least leave his bed going forward. It’s unclear whether the doctor would have said so if Hans hadn’t asked.
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