The Thermometer

Hans Castorp’s week here ran from Tuesday to Tuesday, for on a Tuesday he had arrived. Two or three days before, he had gone down to the office and paid his second weekly bill, a modest account of a round one hundred and sixty francs, modest and cheap enough, even without taking into consideration the nature of some of the advantages of a stay up here⁠—advantages priceless in themselves, though for that very reason they could not be included in the bill⁠—and even without counting extras like the fortnightly concert and Dr. Krokowski’s lectures, which might conceivably have been included. The sum of one hundred and sixty francs represented simply and solely the actual hospitality extended by the Berghof to Hans Castorp: his comfortable lodgment and his five stupendous meals.