Castorp is comfortable in his skin as a young scion of a wealthy family. He spends a whole day searching for somewhere to buy his beloved Maria Mancini cigars, he has brought a supply of several bottles of good Burgundy with him from Hamburg, and he posts his shirts six hundred miles home to be laundered and ironed because he does not trust the landlady’s skills. On the tram he is discombobulated by the conductor’s rudeness and lack of respect.

His life is thrown out of kilter by an infatuation with a woman he sees at a beach resort. In a state of mental turmoil he visits a doctor who specializes in psychological problems and confesses his tale.

It’s a very gentle narrative which indulges much space to Castorp’s subtle moods and whims. The reader will perhaps feel a sense of loss for the dignity and gentleness of the era.

In keeping with its 19th century sensibility, the novel omits the serving classes as real characters. In one scene Castorp sees from a distance a young soldier being disciplined by his superior. But otherwise the harsher side of life is omitted in the story. There is – so far as I can see – no subtle hint that an aristocratic culture of militarism will be to blame for dragging the world into a war, or that class divisions will boil over into civil unrest.

The final pages cast a brief glance to Danzig’s fate in the coming decades. The narrator, in one of his typical interpositions, says:

I would like to see you, you eternal naive idealist, on this same street today, where hundreds of cars are rushing by from Gdansk to Wrzeszcz and from Wrzeszcz to Gdansk, and in the trams you hear nothing but Wanda Pilecka’s sibilant speech, and if anyne still speaks in your language here, they are students from the same polytechnic taking exams in German.