“Not to order,” responded Settembrini. “Not by the calendar week. Not when it reeks of the prescription counter and is doled out to me by the authorities for the good of my health. I cling to my freedom⁠—or rather to such vestiges of freedom and personal dignity as remain to the likes of us. At these affairs I play the guest, as you do up here: I come for a quarter-hour and go away⁠—it gives me the illusion of independence. That it is more than an illusion I do not claim⁠—enough if it please me! It is different with your cousin. For him it all belongs to the service⁠—that is the light, is it not, Lieutenant, in which you regard it? Ah, yes, I know, you have the trick of hugging your pride, even in a state of slavery. A puzzling trick; not everybody in Europe understands it. Music? You were asking if I profess to be an amateur of music? Well, when you say amateur” (Hans Castorp could not recall saying anything of the sort), “the word is perhaps not ill chosen; it has a slight suggestion of superficiality⁠—yes, very well, I am an amateur of music⁠—which is not to say that I set great store by it; not as I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.⁠—Music? It is the half-articulate art, the dubious, the irresponsible, the insensible.