Death is waiting for Joachim (MM22) (2024) Painting by Noël Van Hoof

Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain – Part 22

Joachim walked beside him, his head bent low. He stared at the ground as if examining the soil. It was so strange. Here he walked, so proper and orderly, greeted passersby in his chivalrous way, paying strict attention, as always, to his appearance and bienséance – and he belonged to the earth. Well, we all will belong to it sooner or later. But to belong to it when one is so young and has served the colors for such a short time and with such goodwill and joy, that is bitter – even more bitter and incomprehensible for Hans Castorp walking beside him, knowing everything, than for the man who belongs to the earth – whose proper, silent knowledge is actually more academic and less real to him, is less his concern than his companion's. In fact, our dying is more a concern to those who survive us than to ourselves; for as a wise man once cleverly put it, as long as we are, death is not, and when death is, we are not; and even if we are unfamiliar with that adage, it retains its psychological validity. There is no real relationship between us and death; it is something that does not apply to us at all, but at best to nature and the world at large – which is why all creatures can contemplate it with composure, indifference, irresponsibility, and egoistic innocence. Hans Castorp saw a great deal of this innocence and irresponsibility in Joachim's character during these weeks and understood that although his cousin knew, that did not mean it was difficult for him to observe a decorous silence about his knowledge, for his inner relationship to it was loose and merely theoretical; and in terms of any practical considerations, it was all ordered and governed by a healthy sense of propriety, which no more permitted a discussion of such knowledge than it does of any of the many indelicate functions we are quite aware condition life, but do not prevent us from preserving bienséance.

(English translation by John E. Woods)

Related themes

Thomas MannThe Magic MountainDer Zauberberg