The Magic Mountain: Part 5, Chapter 3: Freedom Summary & Analysis

Time passes, and eventually it’s October, a fact Hans hears Hermine Kleefeld announce to some of the other residents, noting that this will be her second October at the Berghof. Depressed at having been “cheated out of life,” she demands that Rasmussen, another resident, tell her a joke. Rasmussen knows some jokes but is too tired to tell then. Settembrini, having overheard this exchange too, laughs at Hermine’s complaining—they all love the life of loafing they live here, Settembrini insists. He cautions Hans to be aware of all the irony that flourishes at the sanatorium.

Hans is somewhat glad that Settembrini has continued to talk to and teach him, but he’s increasingly resistant to the man’s lessons and doubts the meaningfulness of everything he has to say. Now, he defends Hermine against Settembrini’s criticisms—she’s quite ill, Hans argues, and surely has every right to complain. Settembrini has no patience for “despair,” though—it, and illness, are both forms of “depravity.” Hans can’t accept this—he’s more convinced that illness is caused by depravity or can at least lead to it. All the same, Hans takes in what Settembrini has said—he thinks it’s a bit similar to Krokowski’s ideas about love.

Settembrini voices his disapproval of Krokowski. While Settembrini isn’t fully against analysis, he thinks it can be bad when people misuse it. He compares it to enlightenment ideals: it can disprove bad personal biases and liberate people, but it can also “prevent[] action, and damage[] life at its roots.”  In this way, concludes Settembrini, analysis is quite like death. 

Hans tells Settembrini about the nodules that Behrens saw on his X-ray the other day. Settembrini says something derogatory about the director, and Hans accuses him of being unfair to Behrens. After all, the man is working to alleviate suffering and help humankind. Settembrini merely chuckles and says it’s time they take their rest cures. Settembrini takes his rest cure with others on the rooftop, and he mentions now that Russian residents—male and female—join him there. Hans, inwardly, wonders if Settembrini knows what’s going on between him and Clavdia, and he gets upset at the older man for being so nosy.

Hans, still annoyed at Settembrini, returns to his room and writes a letter to his favorite of his uncles, James Tienappel, telling him to inform the consul that Hans will have to stay at the Berghof for longer than expected—perhaps through the winter—and to make arrangements for some of his personal effects to be sent there. As Hans writes the letter, he wonders why he put the task off for so long. After all, it has granted him his “freedom.”