There’s no real reason why Ferge, one of the gravely ill residents Hans visited as part of his crusade to dignify suffering, has recovered and other residents he visited, like Leila Gerngross, have died. Ferge’s recovery thus gestures toward the arbitrary and meaningless nature of illness and suffering, though Hans fails to recognize how this challenges his theory that suffering ennobles the suffering, apparently having already abandoned that old interest for a new one: botany. Hans’s shifting, short-lived intellectual pursuits reflect his youth and naivety. His beliefs are superficial and tenuous, and his failure to recognize this only further highlights his youth and inexperience.