“Well, that came out just as you wanted it to,” Hans Castorp said. “We couldn’t have struck it luckier, and now I am in for it. He won’t be able to do much, of course⁠—he may prescribe some sort of pectoral syrup or some cough lozenges. However, it is good to have a little encouragement when you feel the way I do. But for heaven’s sake what makes him rattle on so? It struck me as funny at first, but in the long run I can’t say I like it. ‘Sanctified metabolism’⁠—what sort of gibberish is that? If I understand what he means by metabolism, it is nothing but physiology, and to talk about its being sanctified⁠—irreverent, I call it. I don’t enjoy seeing him smoke, either; it distresses me, because I know it is not good for him and gives him melancholia. Settembrini said his joviality is forced, and one must admit that Settembrini has his own views and knows whereof he speaks. I probably ought to have more opinions of my own, as he says, and not take everything as it comes, the way I do. But sometimes one starts out with having an opinion and feeling righteous indignation and all that, and then something comes up that has nothing to do with judgments and criticism, and then it is all up with your severity, and you feel disgusted with the republic and the