An Attack, and a Repulse explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Time and Temporality

  Hans explicitly tells his uncle he must alter his ideas about time, highlighting the fundamental shift in temporal perception that life at the Berghof necessitates. The extended stay (a year and a quarter plus another half-year) is meaningless in the sanatorium's context.

• Isolation and Community

  The failed embassy from the flat-land marks Hans's final, willing severance from his former community. His 'metaphorical shrug of the shoulders' signifies his full integration into the isolated, ritualistic community of the Berghof.

• The Search for Meaning

  Hans's composure and rejection of his old life suggest he has found a new, if ambiguous, center of meaning in the sanatorium's routines and philosophies, which his uncle cannot comprehend.

Characters to notice

• Hans Castorp

  Exhibits serene, armored composure and definitive break from the flat-land. Mocks conventional time, explains medical procedures, and feels his freedom is consummated by his uncle's failed embassy.

• James Tienappel

  The envoy from the flat-land. He is bewildered by Hans's extended stay, eats and drinks heartily but is internally alarmed, and flees after a week, dreading the readjustment to life below.

• Ferdinand Wehsal

  Seeks Hans's company with meek persistence and depressing conversation about hopeless love. Carries Hans's overcoat with self-abnegating devotion after learning details of the carnival night.

• Anton Karlowitsch Ferge

  Mentioned by Hans as a case study to explain the horrors of pleura-shock to his uncle during their meal.

• Hofrat Behrens

  Referenced as the authority who has prescribed another six months for Hans, described by Hans as an interesting, brusque, yet melancholy character.

• Dr. Krokowski

  Mentioned in passing; James is expected to attend one of his lectures during his visit.

Key passages

• “Thus ended the campaign of the flat-land to recover its lost Hans Castorp... It meant that he gave it up, finally and with a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders; it meant, for himself, the consummation of freedom—the thought of which had gradually ceased to make him shudder.”

  His uncle's departure marks the final, failed attempt by the world below to reclaim him. Hans sees this not as a loss, but as the ultimate achievement of his freedom from that world, a freedom he now fully accepts.

  Highlights the definitive break and Hans's internal transformation.

• “The thing was to achieve an absolute cure, and to that end Behrens had just lately socked him another six months... 'Who, deuce take it, had all that time to waste?' Hans Castorp laid back his head, and laughed, a quiet, brief chuckle. Time! Uncle James would have to alter his ideas about time, in the first place, before he could talk.”

  When James is shocked by another six-month prescription, Hans laughs at his conventional, linear understanding of time, indicating that such measures have become meaningless in the sanatorium's timeless atmosphere.

  Demonstrates the clash between flat-land and sanatorium perceptions of time.

• “No, he had become inwardly aware—one could conceive him paling at the thought—that even as it was, after only a week up here, he would find everything down below wrong and out of place... And this dread perception had been the immediate ground of his flight.”

  James Tienappel fled because he realized, with horror, that after just a week at the Berghof, the normal world below would already feel unnatural and disordered to him.

  Shows the infectious, disorienting power of the sanatorium's reality, even on a short-term visitor.