The Magic Mountain: Part 5, Chapter 5: Encyclopedia Summary & Analysis

Hans is obvious about his crush on Clavdia, and soon everyone around the Berghof knows about it. There’s not much to do at the sanatorium other than measure one’s temperature, and so romances—and gossiping about romances—are common. It’s difficult for Hans to find excuses to cross paths with Clavdia, so he looks forward to the mail distribution, which takes place every Sunday and which Hans looks forward to as a chance to socialize with her. However, he ultimately decides not to act on any opportunity, should it arise, limiting himself merely to fantasizing about it.

One Sunday, as Hans waits for Joachim, who has gone off to check whether there’s mail waiting for either of them, he runs into Settembrini. Though in his dreams Settembrini often appears as a nuisance, in waking life Hans feels ashamed of his unconscious self’s rudeness and is even grateful to run into the older man. Settembrini asks after Hans’s health and then makes a few jokes about Russians, veiled allusions to Hans’s crush. Hans laughs—something Settembrini never does. Settembrini then asks if Hans has received a copy of his X-ray yet, and Hans dutifully produces a picture from his wallet. Settembrini dubiously exams the image, which he calls Hans’s “passport,” suggesting that it’s not unambiguous proof of Hans’s illness. 

Settembrini goes on, expressing disapproval that Hans is fine with wasting so much time here at the Berghof. He says such behavior is “foreign to [Hans’s] nature” as a young person, indicating that it’s unnatural to not want to seize life. He advises that Hans speak his own “civilized European” language and not let the “great deal of Asia” that dominates the atmosphere of the sanatorium influence his thoughts. He shouldn’t be tempted by Asiatic values, especially their laziness. He thinks this carefree attitude toward life is what makes patients of this background feel so at home at the Berghof. Instead, Hans should embrace the humanist project of putting his time toward progress and the betterment of humanity. Hans finds Settembrini’s moralizing rather annoying, but he keeps his thoughts to himself and lets Settembrini pull him out of the mail room to preach to him in private. 

Once they are out of the mail room, Settembrini pulls a package out of his jacket and hands Hans a flyer containing official letterhead for the “International League for the Organization of Progress,” of which Settembrini is a member. He tells Hans that this organization is “its own self-perfection.” It's comprised of members from France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and some from Germany. Members are invested in education, overcoming class struggle, and general social improvement. They have established local chapters across Europe and are in  the process of writing Sociological Pathology, an encyclopedia that will catalogue different kinds of human suffering, the chemicals that cause them, and possible methods of eliminating such suffering. Settembrini’s job in all this is to write a separate volume about human suffering in literature.

Hans congratulates Settembrini on being chosen to do such important work. Settembrini says it’s especially fortunate that he can do so at the sanatorium—something that’s not an option for Hans, who is a physical laborer and can only do his work “in the world below.” Because of this, Settembrini cautions Hans, Hans “can be a European only in the flatlands.” He thinks that Hans should leave the Berghof. Hans, taken aback, say this is simply not possible anymore, given his illness. And it’s hypocritical of Settembrini to suggest this, given that he doesn’t dare disobey Behrens’s orders to stay at the sanatorium until he’s fully healed. Hans lashes out at Settembrini, demanding to know why Settembrini—a self-declared humanist—hates the body so much.

Settembrini, seemingly both amused and disappointed by Hans’s accusation, says that while he has nothing against the body in general, as a humanist and proponent of rationality, he has come to loathe the human mind’s necessary attachment to the debased physical body. To further illustrate his point, he brings up the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, of which Voltaire “rose up against,” meaning he “protested” the awesome force of nature that had brought so much destruction upon humanity. Nature is like the body, explains Settembrini: one must respect it when it perpetuates beauty, freedom, and happiness—but one must fight against it when it brings about illness, death, suffering, and base lust. Before Hans can respond to what Settembrini has said, Joachim appears with their mail, interrupting the exchange.