Who She Is
Patient of the Berghof who enters the novel through the noise of the glass door and the silence of her steps, and whom Hans Castorp first disapproves of and then cannot stop looking at.
She walked without a sound, which created a strange contrast with her noisy entrance; she walked in a furtive and peculiar way, with her head slightly forward, to the last table on the left
Trajectory
In Chapter III: The Whole First Day and the Arrival of Settembrini the door that slams provokes in Hans Castorp a hatred out of all proportion, and her face reminds him of someone he cannot name.
The left-hand door slams during the meal, and Hans Castorp feels a fury that the narrator himself does not fully explain.Hans Castorp felt a deadly hatred for this noise, which had always infuriated him [...] he felt like slapping whoever committed this crime in his presence
"What does she remind me of? And who, in this whole world?" he thought.
In Chapter IV: The Sense of Time, Hippe, and the Thermometer the name comes: her eyes are those of Pribislav Hippe, the schoolmate from whom he asked for a pencil at thirteen.
that in their position, color and expression they resembled, in a surprising and even frightening way, those of Pribislav Hippe. "Resembled" would by no means be the right word: these eyes were the same, Dawning Dread
when the eyes speak, they address us as "you," even before the mouth has so much as pronounced "sir", The Thermometer
In Chapter V: Humaniora, the Analysis, and Walpurgis Night Dr. Behrens paints her in oils, and on Walpurgis Night Hans Castorp asks her for a pencil, speaks in French and links the present passion to the love of his school days.
Hans Castorp explains to Clavdia why he chooses French to say what he never said in German.Pourquoi parler? [...] pour moi, parler français, c'est parler sans parler, en quelque manière: sans responsabilité, ou comme nous parlons en rêve.
It is also in French that Hans Castorp explicitly links the present passion to the episode of the schoolroom, the request for a pencil from Pribislav Hippe.Une fois déjà, lorsque j'étais collégien, je t'ai demandé ton crayon [...] parce que je t'aimais irraisonnablement, et c'est de là, sans doute, c'est de mon ancien amour pour toi que ces marques me restent que Behrens a trouvées dans mon corps, et qui indiquent que jadis aussi j'étais malade
She closes the scene with the same object that opened it, and leaves the next day.
Clavdia answers by calling him a handsome bourgeois with the damp little spot in his lung, places on his head her paper Carnival cap, and leaves, predicting a bad fever curve for him that night; the last sentence she addresses to him, already at the door, closes the episode with the same object that opened it.Don't forget to return my pencil.
In Chapter VII: Peeperkorn, the Great Boredom, and the Thunder she returns to the Berghof with Pieter Peeperkorn, and in a private conversation Hans Castorp tells her that illness gives freedom and genius.
Illness grants you this freedom. It transforms you [...] illness makes you a genius!, says Hans Castorp to Clavdia, and she replies laughing, calling him an abstruse philosopher.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that pass through her are Passion, Desire, and Illness.
The novel builds her through objects and repetitions, almost never through her speech: the door, the steps, the eyes that are Hippe's, the pencil asked for twice, the portrait painted by Behrens. She appears more as what Hans Castorp recognizes in her than as someone who explains herself, and her closing line to Walpurgis Night is about the pencil, not about him.
Relationships
- Hans Castorp: his passion, whom she calls a handsome bourgeois with the damp little spot in his lung.
- Pieter Peeperkorn: the companion with whom she returns to the Berghof.
- Dr. Behrens: the doctor who paints her portrait.
- Symbol: the pencil, the object that ties her to Pribislav Hippe.