Her present charge, she said, was the son of a Coburg doll-manufacturer, named Rotbein; the disease had attacked young Fritz’s intestinal tract. That was hard for all concerned; the gentlemen could understand how hard it was, for one who came from cultured surroundings and had the delicacy of feeling of the upper classes. And one couldn’t turn one’s back a minute. A little time ago she had just gone out a few minutes⁠—to get some tooth-powder, in fact; when she came back, there sat her patient in bed, with a glass of stout, a salame, a thick wedge of rye bread, and a pickle before him. All these clandestine dainties his family had sent to give him strength. The next day, of course, he was more dead than alive. He was himself hastening his own end. But that would be only a mercy for him, a blessed relief. For her, Sister Berta, however⁠—whose real name was Alfreda Schildknecht⁠—it would mean little or nothing; she would just go on to another case, in a more or less advanced stage, either here or elsewhere; such was the prospect that opened before her⁠—and there was no other.

Yes, Hans Castorp said, her calling was a hard one, but satisfying, he should think.