Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Magic Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time
Coming of Age
Death and Illness
East vs. West
Abstract Ideals vs. Lived Experience
Summary
Analysis
After dinner one October afternoon, Hans and Joachim sit away from the others in the garden. Hans is a little annoyed that Joachim doesn’t want to sit near the others, but he’s smoking a Maria Mancini—he’s since been able to enjoy the taste of them once more—so he’s not too upset. Just then, Behrens approaches the cousins. He inquires about Hans’s cigar, and then he and Hans exchange brands. They talk a bit about cigars and cigarettes, and then Hans asks Behrens about his occasional painting hobby. Behrens admit that he’s painted a couple portraits. Hans says he’d like to see the doctor’s work. Behrens happily offers to show Hans what he’s done and invites Hans and Joachim over to see his paintings.
Hans’s renewed ability to enjoy his Maria Mancinis signals that he has fully adjusted to life as a Berghof resident. The cigars tasted awful his first days there because he was still adjusting to the place physically and mentally. Now, though, he’s gotten used to the higher elevation and to the laid-back, aimless quality of life there, and the good taste of the cigar reflects that. Hans has a secret motive for asking Behrens about his painting hobby: he wants to see Behrens’s portrait of Clavdia firsthand.
Themes
Behrens’s quarters are furnished in the “Turkish” style. His paintings mostly consist of landscapes, though there are several portraits of his late wife. Finally, Hans finds what he’s been looking for: Behrens’s portrait of Clavdia. Hans casually mentions that he recognizes the portrait’s subject. He and Joachim study the painting. Clavdia looks a bit older in the painting than she is in real life. Her coloring isn’t quite right, and Behrens’s rendition has also “coarsened” her features. They discuss Frau Chauchat and Behrens’s inability to quite capture her character—while he’s intimately familiar with her insides from examining her as a physician, her outside confounds him. Noting her “slanted and slit” eyes, Behrens declares her a “titillating little mystery.” He also mentions that the beautiful, external female form is really made up of fat. Hans praises Behrens’s ability to distinguish between the “medical” and the “lyrical.”
Behrens’s “Turkish” furnishings signify his “Eastern” sensibilities. Given the book’s portrayal of characters with Eastern backgrounds, the style of Behrens’s living quarters evokes a sense of foreboding. Behrens’s medical background affects the way he regards the human body. Though he can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the female form, that appreciation is rooted in his knowledge about the biological matter—fat—that creates that beauty. His work as a doctor has given him a detached, frank attitude toward the body and toward life in a more general sense.
Themes
Hans goes on a long tangent about all humanistic professions being about the beauty of the human form, when it comes down to it. He praises portraiture as a superior art form and suggests that the portrait of Clavdia might look better hung above Behrens’s sofa. He's not at all self-conscious about his unprompted, long-winded spiel. After, Hans and Joachim follow Behrens into his kitchen, where the doctor brews Turkish coffee for the three of them.
Despite Hans’s frequent resentment of Settembrini, he often imitates his occasional mentor, going off on lofty (albeit naïve and underinformed) tangents about subjects that Settembrini has lectured about. This dissonance is yet another instance in which Hans’s characteristic ambivalence is on full display.
Themes
Hans changes the subject, asking Behrens about human skin. He explains that he’s very interested in the human body in general. In fact, he might have become a doctor or a clergyman, had his life circumstances not led him to become an engineer. Behrens, intrigued, describes the skin’s primary function as dispelling danger. He talks about how a person’s expanding blood vessels cause them to blush when they’re embarrassed. On the other hand, when a person sees something physically beautiful, their blood vessels shrink, causing their skin to appear pale and feel cold. Behrens explains that scientists theorize that all psychological responses are geared toward protecting the body.
Behrens suggests a direct link between bodily function and human emotion, similar to the relationship Krokowski described in his lecture earlier. The bodily functions that Behrens notes here match some of the symptoms Hans has experienced when he’s around Clavdia, so when Behrens describes such responses as the body’s attempt to protect itself, it perhaps foreshadows the danger that Hans’s infatuation over Clavdia poses to Hans.
Themes
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Hans eagerly asks Behrens to expand on his earlier mention of the lymphatic system, and Behrens obliges. Hans exclaims at how interesting he finds all this—“the formation of breast milk…the lymph of the legs.” He pleads with Behrens to tell him what the body is made of. Behrens replies that Hans will be disappointed to know the body is mostly water—and the parts of it that aren’t water are mostly “egg white, or protein,” with a bit of fat and salt thrown in, too.
Hans’s sudden interest in biology and human anatomy seems somewhat to contradict his earlier disapproval of Behrens’s frank, detached attitude toward illness and dying—an attitude that Hans felt dishonored life and humanity. This scene thus further illustrates Hans’s characteristic ambivalence, which in turn emphasizes his youth and naivety: he’s still highly impressionable, and he doesn’t have the conviction or experience to commit to any particular ideals, however enthusiastically he may latch on to them initially.
Themes
Behrens then talks about the protein that causes rigor mortis, a phenomenon Hans happily admits being familiar with. Hans then muses that a person interested in life is really interested in death. Behrens disagrees, though, noting that there is a difference: life is about “retain[ing]” a form, whereas death isn’t. Behrens teases Hans for his exuberance today. Then he excuses himself, explaining that he’s begun to feel rather melancholy. Once alone, Joachim admits that Hans’s idea to talk to Behrens at least changed up their schedule a bit.
Hans here implies a connectedness between life and death, an opinion he seems to have formed from Settembrini, though at the time he disagreed with Settembrini’s position. This scene further highlights Hans’s inability to commit to any one way of looking at life, death, or the world in general. His attitude shifts depending on whose company he’s in.
Themes
