Chapter 23 doubt and speculation

On Tuesday, our hero had lived here on the hill for a full week, so when he returned from his morning walk, he found a bill in his room.This was his first week's accounts, a purely commercial list, enclosed in a green envelope with a picture on top of which the outlines of the Hill House Sanitarium were lovingly drawn.There is a small column at the bottom left of the bill, which briefly introduces the situation of the sanitarium, and the words "Psychotherapy according to the latest methods" are also strikingly printed in alternate lines.The specific accounts are written, totaling 180 francs, including 12 francs for board and lodging and medical expenses, 8 francs for room rent per day, 20 francs for hospitalization expenses, 10 francs for room disinfection, and the remaining decimals are for laundry, Beer and food and drinks on the first night at the hospital.

Hans Castorp and Joachim calculated carefully and found the accounts to be above reproach. "Well, I haven't used any medical expenses," he said, "but it's my own business. It's included in the board and lodging expenses, and I can't ask them to deduct it, let alone how can I deduct it? As for the disinfection fee, then They've made a profit, because it doesn't take ten francs of formalin to fumigate American women. But overall, judging from the price they offer, I think it's cheap, not expensive." So before the second breakfast, they went to the "administration" to pay off the debt.

"Administration" is on the ground floor.Just cross the hall, past the cloakroom, kitchen and pantry, and then through the corridor, and you are sure to see a door with a striking ceramic plaque.Hans Castorp examined the financial center of the sanatorium with interest.This is an elegant small office, a female typist is busy typing, three male staff are sitting at the desk and working hard, and in the adjacent room, there is a senior staff who looks like a director or leader sitting in a separate cylindrical shape. Work at your desk. He raised his head and cast a cold, reviewing glance at the men through the spectacles.Clerks dealt with them at the counter—change change, collect money, issue invoices.During the checkout process, the cousins ​​were always humble, quiet, courteous, even gentle.Like ordinary German youths, because they have great respect for the authorities and officialdom, they can't help admiring pens, inks, paper and inkstones and the institutions that use such stationery.But once outside, on their way to breakfast and later that day, their conversation turned to the structure of the Heights Sanitarium.Joachim is an old patient and an insider, so he can answer all the questions asked by his cousin.

In fact, Behrens, the consultant, was not at all the director and owner of the sanitarium, despite the impression one might get.Above him and behind the scenes, there was some kind of invisible force, and the office they saw just now was to some extent a representative of this force.This is a board of directors and a joint-stock company, and it is not bad to be able to buy shares, because according to Joachim, although the sanatorium has many medical staff and the principles of economic management are extremely free, the shareholders are guaranteed to receive a considerable sum every year. Substantial bonus.The advisor, therefore, is not an independent person, but an agent, a clerk, a confidant of the higher authorities.Of course, he is the number one person in the sanatorium and the soul of the entire institution, and has a decisive influence on the whole hospital (including the management department). However, he is the chief physician and naturally has no time to intervene in the business affairs of the sanatorium.

The consultant doctor was from the north-west of Germany; it was well known that he had come here to do this work some years ago out of desperation, at odds with his inclinations and ambitions.He had come here for his wife, whose remains had long been buried in the cemetery next to the "village."The cemetery in the village of Davos, picturesque, is located on the hillside to the right, near the entrance to the valley.His wife is beautiful, but her eyes are too big and sick from the photos.Her photos are everywhere in the consultant doctor's residence, and there are still oil portraits painted by him as an amateur on the wall.

She raised two children for him, a boy and a girl.Later, she developed a fever and couldn't bear it anymore, so she was sent to this place. Within a few months, her vitality was exhausted.It is said that Behrens doted on her very much, and that her death hit him hard, so that for a time he was depressed and dejected, sometimes laughing foolishly in the street, talking to himself, and making various gestures , eye-catching.At this time he no longer went back to his original circle of life, but stayed there, of course because he couldn't bear to leave his wife's grave, but there was another reason (this reason was not so sentimental) that contributed to this. As soon as he changed, his body also suffered some trauma. According to his own scientific point of view, he simply belonged to this nursing home.So he went to a sanatorium as one of the doctors. This kind of doctor not only takes care of the inpatients, but also sympathizes with them. This kind of doctor is not indifferent to the disease. The imprint of the disease - although this situation is a bit strange, it is by no means isolated.This undoubtedly has its advantages, but it is not without its problems.It is indeed welcome that doctors and patients can share weal and woe. It is said that only those who are afflicted by diseases can guide and treat patients.However, if he himself is the slave of disease, what right does he have to give orders? How can he set others free when he submits to the will of others? A sick doctor is counterintuitive in the eyes of ordinary people. A puzzling image, would his intellect be overshadowed by his own personal experience of the disease, could not be so rich and morally sublime? He would not view the disease with pure hostility , he is prejudiced, his position is ambiguous.People take reservations about whether a sick person can devote as much attention to healing or caring as a healthy person.

While Hans Castorp and Joachim chatted about the Heights Sanatorium and its medical director, Hans expressed certain skeptical and speculative opinions.But Joachim said that it was not at all known whether Behrens, the consultant, was still an invalid; perhaps he had already recovered.He has been here for a long time. At the beginning, he was single-handedly. Not only was he very good at auscultation, but he was also very good at lung cutting, so he quickly became famous.Later, the Sanzhuang Sanatorium hired him, and he has been cooperating closely with the sanatorium for almost ten years... In the back, at the end of the hall in the northwest corner of the sanatorium, is his dormitory, and Dr. Krokowski's residence is not far from him Far.Behrens, a small widower's house, was run by a woman of noble birth—that is, the head nurse—to whom Sethambrini often sneered, and Han S. Castorp had seen her only now and then.Besides, the consultant doctor was alone, because his son was studying at the Imperial University and his daughter was married—to a lawyer in the French district of Switzerland.Behrens' son sometimes visited his father during the holidays, including once when Joachim was hospitalized.According to Joachim, the female patients in the hospital were very excited to see him, and even their body temperature rose.Mutual jealousy led to a row in the lounge, and more and more women flocked to Dr. Krokowski during his consultation hours. . .

The assistant physician had his own private consulting room in the well-lit basement of the sanitarium building, as did the general exam room, laboratory, operating room, and X-ray room.We call it the basement because there are stone steps leading to it from the ground floor of the building, which actually forms the impression of leading to the basement.But this is nothing more than an illusion.Firstly, the ground floor of the building is quite high; secondly, the Sanzhuang Sanatorium as a whole is built on a steep ground against a mountain, and the rooms in the so-called basement are all facing the front, overlooking the garden and the valley; Leading below, the true nature of the terrain is more or less concealed.Through these steps one descends from the ground floor, but once below one finds that the terrain inside is still as high as before, or only slightly lower.Hans Castorp had such a pleasant impression there one afternoon when he accompanied his cousin to the "basement" to be weighed by the bathroom master.

The place gave one the clarity of an infirmary, everything was very white, and the doors were also white-painted and shiny, as was the door to Dr. Krokowski's reception room.The doctor's business card is tacked on here with a thumbtack.The anteroom was only two steps down from the corridor, so that the hidden room at the back seemed quite spacious.This door is at the end of the corridor, to the right of the stairs.As Hans Castorp walked up and down the corridor waiting for Joachim, he paid special attention to this door.He saw someone coming out, it was a woman who just came to the hospital, and he didn't know her name yet.She was a small and frail girl with a lock of curly hair on her forehead, and a pair of gold earrings.When she climbed the stairs, she leaned over, lifted up her skirt with one hand, and covered her mouth with a handkerchief with the other small ring-wearing hand. She bent over and stared at the front with her big light blue eyes in a trance.She hurried upstairs with small steps, her skirts rustling, and stopped suddenly halfway, as if remembering something, then hurried forward until she disappeared in the building.She was always hunched up all the way, keeping the handkerchief from her lips.When the door opened, the place behind her looked much darker than in the white hallway.

The sense of clarity in the medical room obviously did not reach there from the lower parts.As Hans Castorp saw it, Dr. Krokowski's psychoanalysis room was only dim.