“Their bodies? Oh, I see. Imagine!” said Hans Castorp. And suddenly he burst out laughing, a violent, irrepressible laugh, which shook him all over and distorted his face, that was stiff with the cold wind, until it almost hurt. “On bobsleds! And you can tell it me just like that, in cold blood! You’ve certainly got pretty cynical in these five months.”

“Not at all,” answered Joachim, shrugging again. “Why not? It’s all the same to them, isn’t it? But maybe we do get cynical up here. Behrens is a cynic himself⁠—but he’s a great old bird after all, an old corps-student. He is a brilliant operator, they say. You will like him. Krokowski is the assistant⁠—devilishly clever article. They mention his activities specially, in the prospectus. He psychoanalyses the patients.”