The Magic Mountain: Part 7, Chapter 11: The Thunderbolt Summary & Analysis

In total, Hans remains at the Berghof for seven years. During his time there, he sits at all seven of the dining hall’s tables. His final place is at the Bad Russian table, and at this point he has grown a misshapen little beard. None of the medical staff “invent diversions for him” any longer. Instead, they only ask him if he’s slept “well,” and this is only a formality. Behrens hardly speaks to him. He no longer requires supervision—nobody expects him to do anything rash or dangerous, and he’s “no longer even capable of forming the thought of a return to the flatlands.”

Throughout the years, more deaths occur. Consul Tienappel, Hans’s great-uncle and former guardian, dies; Hans learns about the death via telegram. Hans writes a letter in response and tells his family that his present condition prevents him from returning home to pay last respects to his late uncle. This death breaks Hans’s last connection to the flatlands, and from that point forth he writes and receives no more letters. He also no longer orders Maria Mancinis, having since found a different, suitable brand to buy up in the mountains.

In Hans’s seventh year, “the rumble of thunder” arrives: World War I. The war catches Hans, who hasn’t bothered to read the paper in quite some time, completely off guard. Settembrini had tried to keep Hans informed of all the events happening in the world below, but Hans was too busy “‘playing king’” to pay him much notice.

Settembrini and Hans’s relationship has also changed. Whereas in the beginning it was Settembrini who sat beside Hans’s bed and tried to correct Hans’s misconceptions “about matters of life and death,” now Hans sits beside Settembrini’s bed and listens to him talk about “the world situation.” Settembrini hardly gets out of bed these days—Naphta’s suicide affected him greatly. Lately, Settembrini’s contribution to Sociological Pathology has been stalled indefinitely, and he’ll now deliver his findings about human suffering in literature orally rather than in written form. As tension builds throughout Europe, Settembrini finds that his humane, pacifist ideals clash with his humanist desire for freedom and progress. Settembrini reacts to the assassination of the archduke with both horror and admiration for the act that “was committed to free a nation […].”

When war is finally declared, the Berghof erupts in chaos. It’s only now that Hans—“our sleeper”—begins to rouse and look around. Finally, “the enchantment [has been] broken,” and Hans is “set free—not by his own actions […] but set free by elementary external forces, for whom his liberation was a very irrelevant matter.”   

Ever since Hans’s spell was lifted, the Berghof has been in a chaotic state, with all the panicked residents rushing to pack their bags and retreat to safety in the land below. Hans, meanwhile, freed from his former state of disillusionment, remains calm and collected. Settembrini encounters Hans as he is packing his bags. He embraces Hans and kisses him, lamenting that Hans will be returning to the world under such unfortunate conditions—he wishes it could’ve been Hans’s choice to return, but such is life. He urges Hans to fight courageously, and then he bids him goodbye.

Now it’s dusk on a battlefield in some unspecified location in the flatlands. Missiles howl through the red, fiery air. It’s the final stretch of a battle that has been going on all day. The soldiers are mostly volunteers and young people. The meadow they march through is wet, muddy, and immensely difficult to traverse. The soldiers’ faces are all covered in mud. There are 3,000 soldiers—1,000 extra to guarantee that there will be 2,000 left to retake the nearby burning villages. Projectiles fly toward the soldiers, and many are hit. Others are shot at and killed. More and more soldiers are sent out from the surrounded wood to replace their fallen comrades.

Hans Castorp is among these men. He looks like all the others, flushed and covered in mud. He sings a song to himself: “Upon its bark I’ve ca-arved there / So many words of love—.” Then Hans stops singing and throws himself to the ground to avoid being hit by an explosive shell. Hans watches as the shell—“this product of science gone berserk”—buries itself in the ground before him and explodes. He watches as two of his comrades are blown to pieces.

The narrator confirms that Hans has only suffered a minor injury to his leg from the exploding shell. Hans gets up and limps away, continuing to sing love songs as he struggles onward. Finally, the narrator bids Hans—“life’s faithful problem child”—goodbye. “We” won’t know whether Hans lives or dies, the narrator admits, but his chances aren’t good. The narrator, addressing Hans directly now, recalls the days back at the Berghof when Hans would “play king,” and when, during these moments, Hans “saw the imitation of a dream of love rising up out of death and this carnal body.” But, the narrator asks Hans now, as Hans takes in the endless death and destruction that surrounds him, "will love someday rise up out of this, too?”