The Magic Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

in an easygoing Hamburg voice, “Hello there. This is where you get off.” And when he looked out, there on the platform below his window stood Joachim, wearing a brown ulster but no hat of any sort, and looking healthier than ever. He laughed and said again, “Come on, get off, don’t be shy!”
    “But I’m not there yet,” Hans Castorp said, dumbfounded, keeping his seat.
    “Sure you are. This is Davos-Dorf. The sanatorium’s closer from here. I’ve got a carriage. Hand me your things.”
    And with a laugh that betrayed his confusion and excitement at having arrived and seeing his cousin again, Hans Castorp lifted out his valise and winter coat, his plaid blanket roll plus cane and umbrella, and finally Ocean Steamships. Then he ran along the narrow corridor and jumped down onto the platform for a proper and more or less personal greeting, though this was done without any exuberance, as is fitting between people who are cool and reserved by custom. Strangely enough, they had always avoided calling one another by their first names, purely out of fear of showing too much warmth of emotion. And since they could not very well address one another by their last names, they confined themselves to the use of familiar pronouns—now a deeply rooted habit between the two cousins.
    They quickly shook hands with some embarrassment—young Ziemssen never losing his military bearing—watched all the while by a man in livery with a braided cap, who then approached and asked Hans Castorp for his baggage ticket; this was the concierge of the International Sanatorium Berghof, and he proved quite willing to fetch the guest’s large trunk from the station at Davos-Platz while the gentlemen themselves drove on ahead to dinner. The man had an obvious limp, and so the first thing that Hans Castorp asked Joachim Ziemssen was, “Is he a war veteran? Is that why he limps so badly?”
    “Right! A war veteran,” Joachim replied, somewhat sarcastically. “He’s got it in the knee—or had it, that is, now that he’s had his kneecap removed.”
    Hans Castorp mulled this over as rapidly as possible. “Oh, I see,” he said, lifting his head and hastily looking back as they walked on. “But you’re not going to try to tell me that you still have anything like that, are you? You look as if you’ve already received your commission and were just home from maneuvers.” And he gave his cousin a sidelong glance.
    Joachim was taller than he, with broader shoulders, the picture of youthful vigor, a man made for a uniform. He was very dark-haired, a type not all that uncommon in his blond hometown, and his naturally dark complexion was now tanned almost bronze. With his large black eyes and dark little moustache above full, finely chiseled lips, he would have been downright handsome, if his ears had not stood out so badly. For most of his life, they had been his one great sorrow, his only care. Now he had other worries. “You will be coming back down with me, won’t you?” Hans Castorp went on. “I really see nothing standing in your way.”
    “Back down with you?” his cousin asked, turning to him with large eyes that had always had a gentle look, but that in the last five months had taken on a weary, indeed sad expression. “When do you mean?”
    “Why, in three weeks.”
    “Oh, I see—you’re already thinking about heading back home,” Joachim replied. “Well, wait and see, you’ve only just arrived. Three weeks are almost nothing for us up here, of course, but for you, just here on a visit and planning to stay a grand total of three weeks, for you that’s a long time. Acclimatize yourself first—and you’ll learn that’s not all that easy. Besides, the climate’s not the only unusual thing about us. You’ll see quite a few new sights here, just watch. And as for what you’ve said about me—well, I’m not in such fine feather as all that, my friend. ‘Home in three weeks,’ that’s a notion from down below. I’m