Hans Castorp mused, his gaze still bent on Frau Chauchat’s arm. The way women dressed! They showed their necks and bosoms, they transfigured their arms by veiling them in “illusion”; they did so, the world over, to arouse our desire. O God, how beautiful life was! And it was just such accepted commonplaces as this that made it beautiful⁠—for it was a commonplace that women dressed themselves alluringly, it was so well known and recognized a fact that we never consciously realized it, but merely enjoyed it without a thought. And yet he had an inward conviction that we ought to think about it, ought to realize what a blessed, what a well-nigh miraculous arrangement it was. For of course it all had a certain end and aim; it was by a definite design that women were permitted to array themselves with irresistible allure: it was for the sake of posterity, for the perpetuation of the species. Of course. But suppose a woman were inwardly diseased, unfit for motherhood⁠—what then? What was the sense of her wearing gauze sleeves and attracting male attention to her physical parts if these were actually unsound? Obviously there was no sense; it ought to be considered immoral, and forbidden as such.