The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

Hans Castorp had been offended by Joachim’s “Rather!”—it had sounded so impertinent, or at least oddly indifferent under the circumstances. But the main thing was that Joachim spoke, that he was able to speak to her at all and perhaps was even showing off a little for his cousin with his impertinent “Rather!”—just as Hans Castorp had himself showed off for Joachim and Settembrini when he had been asked how long he intended to stay and had said, “Three weeks.” She had turned to address Joachim, despite the magazine he was holding up in front of his face—because he was a long-term resident, of course, and so she had known him longer, at least by sight. Although there was that other reason, too: a polite social conversation, an articulated exchange was quite appropriate for them, because no savage, profound, terrible secret existed between them. Had someone brown-eyed, with a ruby ring and orange-blossom perfume, been waiting here with them, it would have been up to him, Hans Castorp, to speak up and say, “Rather!”—to stand across from her so sovereign and correct.