One becomes, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, in such establishments a peculiar in-between creature. Hardly has one taken off the dinner jacket, the festive mask of the night, when one is given another, softer, less conspicuous mask to put on: terry cloth. White. Belt loop. And with this covering, which at the same time calls to mind childhood (towel) and illness (hospital gown), one wanders through corridors whose carpets are as muffled as the conscience, and past doors behind which lie people who are either relaxing or pretending to.
Hans Castorp did what he always did: he did it seriously. He wore the bathrobe as if he had earned it, and yet in this seriousness he felt a small comic element. For it is disheartening, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, how easily one fits into a uniform when it is warm.
He stepped into the bathing hall.
And it was as if he were stepping into an oversized lung.
Not only because the air was humid and warm – a warmth that was not cozy but functional, as if it were being produced by machines one does not see –, but because the hall itself was built like a breathing apparatus: a high space, roofed over by a bright, radiating timberwork that rose up to a round skylight, as if above there were an eye that controls everything but pretends to be friendly. Upon the beams the light sat in small points, evenly distributed, as if the stars had been domesticated; and beneath all this lay the water, pale blue, still, moved by fine reflections that danced on the surface like a nervous smile.
Plants stood there, trees even – a large tree which, inasmuch as it stood inside a building, had something indecent about it, as if it had been abducted from nature and now been rehabilitated for decorative purposes. Its leaves hung into the lines of sight, so that when one sat in a certain way one saw the world through green, as through a filter, as through a soothing of the conscience.
