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Part 3, Chapter 6: One Word Too Many
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 taking a rest, Hans and Joachim head down for dinner, though Hans is still quite tired. He looks around and sees all the usual residents going about their business as usual. Frau Stöhr rambles on about her checkup that morning, explaining that Behrens informed her she’d have to stay there five more months. Dinner that night is elaborate and consists of six courses. Everyone fills their plates and eats ravenously, which somewhat disgusts Hans.
Thus far, most of Hans’s time at the Berghof has involved eating or sleeping. This reinforces the sanatorium’s passive, decadent atmosphere. Hans’s disgust at the residents’ voracious appetites indicates that at this point in the story, he's still actively resisting the drive to give in to the temptations of indulgence and excess.
Themes
Two things happen during that meal that catch Hans’s attention. First, someone slams the door shut again. This time, he’s determined to catch the culprit, so he turns around quickly and sees that it’s a young woman of average height and build. She goes to sit at the Good Russian table. Hans observes her hands as she arranges her hair. Hers aren’t especially feminine—in fact, they are wide, and her fingers are short and stubby. Hans finds something “childish” about her hands. Fräulein Englehart sees who Hans is looking at and explains that the young woman’s name is Madame Chauchat—a “charming lady,” she says, sarcastically. She might have a husband, but he’s never been to the sanatorium and is a total mystery to everyone.
Madame Chauchat’s poor manners and her place at one of the Russian tables establish her as a corrupting force. Her “childish” hands suggest an unrefined, unintellectual demeanor. Meanwhile her poor manners—her bad posture and her habit of slamming doors shut behind her—reflect the threat that the Eastern ideals she represents pose to human progress and Western social order.
Themes
The second incident to catch Hans’s attention is that Dr. Blumenkohl leaves the room, looking disgusted as usual. After he leaves, Frau Stöhr notes that he’s very near death. Dinner wraps up in under an hour, and Hans finds himself back in his room, reclining in his comfortable lounge chair on his balcony, taking his rest cure between dinner and teatime. His heart continues to beat heavily as he naps. When he uses his handkerchief later, he sees that he’s coughed up a bit of blood. He smokes another Maria Mancini despite it still not tasting very good.
Frau Stöhr’s remark about Dr. Blumenkohl being very near death seems to be made more in passing than out of genuine concern for the man, further underscoring the frank, casual attitude toward death that many of the Berghof’s residents share. Hans’s ill-tasting Maria Mancini and his pounding heart reflect his inner struggle to resist the Berghof’s pull. At this point, he wants to return to his life in ordinary society and live a productive existence there, yet it’s becoming harder for him to honor those obligations when the Berghof’s decadence continues to tempt him.
Themes
