“Engineer, Engineer,” said the Italian, and nodded musingly, his black eyes fixed on space, “are you not afraid of the hurricane which is the second circle of the Inferno, and which whirls and whips the offenders after the flesh, those lost unhappy ones who sacrificed their reason to their desire? Gran dio! When I picture you, flapping about in the gale, heels over head⁠—I could almost swoon out of sheer pity, and fall ‘as a dead body falls.’ ”

They laughed, glad that he should be pleased to jest and talk poetry. But Settembrini added: “You remember, Engineer, on the evening of mardi gras, as you sat over your wine, you took your leave of me⁠—yes, in a way, it amounted to that. Well, today it is my turn. You see me, gentlemen, in act to bid you farewell. I am leaving House Berghof.”

The cousins were aghast.

“Impossible! You are joking,” Hans Castorp cried, as he had cried once before, on a like occasion. He was nearly as much startled now as then.