The Magic Mountain: Part 6, Chapter 7: Snow Summary & Analysis

All the Berghof’s residents are unhappy that it’s not as sunny as it should be, which is vital to their health and one of the facility’s selling points. Everyone grumbles about not getting their money’s worth. Management tries to mitigate this by purchasing special lamps that create artificial sunlight, but they’re not the same as real sunlight. In place of sunlight, there’s an abundance of snow—far more than there was Hans’s first winter. Hans spends his afternoons bundled up in blankets on his balcony, gazing out at the winter scenery.

Still, Hans loves the snow, finding it not unlike the sand all along the shore back home. And while the heavy accumulation of snow makes it difficult to move about the grounds—the snowplows simply can’t keep up—Hans doesn’t mind: all he really wants to do is “play king,” and he can do that from the stationary comfort of his balcony. But he does also want to be more active, so one day he decides to buy skis. If he were to tell Behrens about his plan, the doctor would surely reject it—athletic activity is prohibited due to the strain it puts on the heart. So Hans decides to go behind Behrens’s back.

When Hans tells Settembrini about his plan, Settembrini enthusiastically encourages him, even offering to accompany Hans to the store to buy them. Hans takes him up on the offer and, on Settembrini’s vocal (but completely uninformed) advice, buys a nice pair of skis at a shop in town. In the following days, Settembrini looks on from a distance and applauds Hans as he struggles to get the hang of them. In time, Hans becomes sufficiently competent, and he enjoys gliding about the grounds, gazing out at the beautiful wintery landscape and relishing the contemplative solitude his new hobby grants him. But the silence is also intimidating, forcing Hans to acknowledge the wild forces of nature that surround him. Still, doing so instills in him a new sense of courage and creating in him a sense of “sympathy” with the surrounding natural world.

Sometimes, Hans stabs the end of his ski pole into the snow and pulls it out rapidly, creating an optical illusion that makes it look like blue light is shining out of the hole. The light reminds him of Hippe’s or Clavdia’s eyes—eyes Settembrini offensively labeled “Tartar slits.”

After dinner one day, Hans sets off on his skis and makes his way into the woods. He rests there for a while and smokes a cigarette. It’s 3:00 p.m. now, and he continues on, even though it means he might get back to the sanatorium late: the “allure” of “this uncanny world that boded no good” is too strong to resist. At once, Hans realizes that he’s been wanting to get lost this entire time. He senses a storm approaching and knows it would be wise not to let it overtake him, but he’s tempted to let that happen. Then, without warning (or perhaps exactly as Hans wanted to happen), the wind picks up and the storm arrives. Hans isn’t dressed for such extreme cold, and it chills him to the bone.

Hans struggles through the snow, feeling a mixture of fear and excitement. Eventually, much to Hans’s relief, he spots a humanmade structure—a shed—and approaches it. Though the shed is locked, it at least offers some relief from the intense winds. It’s now just half past four. Hans can hardly believe so little time has passed. Just then, he remembers that he bought a small bottle of beer on his way out of the Berghof and pocketed it before he ventured off into the snow. He removes it now and takes a few sips, but he immediately realizes what a mistake this was—the beer muddles his thoughts and just makes him want to sleep.

Hans ventures forward and suddenly sees the sea emerge before him. Children run along the shore and into the sea. It’s a delightful scene, and one that deeply charms and moves Hans. It feels criminal for him to look on this happy scene in his disheveled, miserable state. 

Suddenly, Hans sees huge columns before him, and he realizes he’s at the entrance to a temple. He walks up the stairs and toward the temple. He sees a statue of two women, one an older woman with a veil drawn over her hair and the other a young woman with a cloak draped around her. Hans suddenly feels anxious and afraid. He walks inside the temple and sees two half-naked elderly women dismembering a small, blond-haired child. Hans wants to run but can’t seem to move. The women are intent to finish their task. When they see Hans they curse at him in German.

Hans loses consciousness. When he comes to, he’s lying in the snow with his skis on. He knows he was dreaming but feels the lingering essence of the dream still within him. He muses to himself that his fixation with death and sickness is really just “an interest in life.” He thinks that the ideas he’s come up with are far better than anything he’s heard from Settembrini and Naphta. He thinks that illness, death, and suffering really have more in common with one another than either man will admit. He thinks that the only force stronger than death is love—not reason, as Settembrini would argue. Eventually, after much wandering, he finds his way back to the Berghof and enjoys a sumptuous supper. By the time he goes to bed, he’s forgotten the revelations he had in the snow earlier that day.