Illness

The Theme in the Work

Illness is the condition of the place from the first night. In Chapter I, on the way to the sanatorium (see the Berghof), Joachim Ziemssen speaks of the corpses lowered on sleds; in room 34 an American woman died two days earlier; in the corridor Hans Castorp hears the cough of the Austrian aristocrat; and Dr. Krokowski greets the healthy visitor by saying he has never found a man in perfect health.

In Chapter III Hans Castorp's body begins to react on its own: his face burns, his laughter won't stop, his heart beats for no reason, and the handkerchief comes away stained with blood without his having the strength to reflect on it. Mr. Albin turns incurable illness into a release from every obligation, and Lodovico Settembrini calls the patients a fallen people. In Chapter IV the Italian states the doctrine: illness is not noble nor worthy of reverence, while Krokowski teaches in his lecture that every illness is transformed love. At the end of the chapter, the thermometer (see the thermometer) reads 37.6, and Dr. Behrens declares that the visitor was, clandestinely, one of us.

In Chapter V illness stops being a hypothesis. Hans Castorp spends three weeks in bed, sees in the X-ray his own hand without flesh and, in his nighttime readings of anatomy and physiology, comes to think of life as a fever of matter and of sickness as the licentious form of life. Settembrini warns that illness and despair are forms of licentiousness, and the passion for Clavdia Chauchat is directed at a body that illness has once again turned into flesh.

The book makes illness travel the reverse path to that of cure: it begins as something that belongs to others, becomes an unnamed symptom, then a diagnosis, and ends as a key to thinking about one's own life. Settembrini and Krokowski dispute its meaning, debasement or disguised desire, and Hans Castorp does not choose between the two. The decisive phrase is Behrens's, because "one of us" is worth less as medicine than as admission: to be ill, at the Berghof, is to belong.

Where It Appears

• Chapter I, The Arrival: Joachim remarks casually that in winter the corpses have to be lowered on sleds because the paths become impassable, and Hans Castorp laughs without being able to hold back.
• Chapter I, No. 34: On going down to dinner, Hans Castorp hears in the corridor the cough of an Austrian aristocrat, stripped of pleasure and relief, which impresses him deeply.
• Chapter I, In the Restaurant: On learning that the new guest came without illness, Dr. Krokowski tells Hans Castorp that he is a phenomenon worth studying, since he has never met a man in perfect health.
• Chapter III, Satan: On meeting Hans Castorp, Settembrini calls the doctors of the Berghof Minos and Rhadamanthus and says the patients, himself included, form a fallen people.
• Chapter III, One Word Too Many: Hans Castorp tells Joachim that he feels his heart beat gratuitously, for no reason, on its own, as if the body had come loose from the soul.
• Chapter III, Mr. Albin: Mr. Albin shows the ladies a loaded revolver and, declaring himself incurable, says he has nothing more to do and can laugh at everything.
• Chapter IV, Necessary Purchase: When Hans Castorp says illness is worthy of reverence, Settembrini replies that illness is absolutely not noble, nor worthy of reverence, in any way.
• Chapter IV, Analysis: In the lecture, Dr. Krokowski states that repressed love returns disguised as illness and that every illness is only transformed love.
• Chapter IV, The Thermometer: Hans Castorp's thermometer reads 37.6, and Dr. Behrens, examining him, says he was, clandestinely, one of us, and sends him to bed.
• Chapter V, "My God, I See!": At the fluoroscope, Hans Castorp contemplates his own hand on the screen and sees the flesh dissolved in mist, with the skeleton of the right hand standing out.
• Chapter V, Research: Reading anatomy on winter nights, Hans Castorp reflects that illness was the licentious form of life and that life might perhaps be an infectious disease of matter.
• Chapter VI, Operationes spirituales: In a dispute with Settembrini near Christmas, Naphta argues that the more ill a person is, the more human, and that the genius of illness is more human than that of health.
• Chapter VII, Mynheer Peeperkorn (continued): In the vestibule, Hans Castorp tells Clavdia that illness grants freedom and makes a person a genius, and she replies laughing, calling him an abstruse philosopher.

Passages

Krokowski receives the newcomer by turning health into an anomaly.

Mr. Albin uses incurable illness as a license to laugh at everything.

Settembrini answers Hans Castorp by refusing the nobility of illness.

Behrens turns the visitor into a patient.

In the balcony readings, illness begins to explain life itself.