His audience rose, pushed back its chairs, and slowly began to move towards the same door, as though converging upon him from all sides, without volition, hesitatingly, yet with one accord, like the throng after the Pied Piper. Hans Castorp stood in the stream without moving, his hand on the back of his chair. I am only a guest up here, he thought. Thank God I am healthy, that business has nothing to do with me; I shan’t even be here for the next lecture. He watched Frau Chauchat going out, gliding along with her head thrust forward. Did she have herself psychoanalysed, he wondered. And his heart began to thump. He did not notice Joachim, coming toward him among the chairs, and started when his cousin spoke.

“You got here at the last minute,” Joachim said. “Did you go very far? How was it?”

“Oh, very nice,” Hans Castorp answered. “Yes, I went rather a long way. But I must confess, it did me less good than I thought it would. I won’t repeat it for the present.”