Hans Castorp expressed it: “A cigar like that is alive⁠—it breathes. Fact. Once, at home, I had the idea of keeping Maria in an airtight tin box, to protect her from damp. Would you believe it, she died! Inside of a week she perished⁠—nothing but leathery corpses left.”

They exchanged experiences upon the best way to keep cigars⁠—particularly imported ones. The Hofrat loved them, he would have smoked nothing but heavy Havanas, but they did not suit him. He told Hans Castorp about two little Henry Clays he had once taken to his heart, in an evening company, which had come within an ace of putting him under the sod.