The Hofrat’s son, Knut by name, came for the holidays and lived with his father in the wing of the building; a good-looking young man, save that his cervical vertebra was already too prominent. The presence of young Behrens could be felt in the air: the ladies showed a proneness to laugh, to bicker, and to adorn their persons. They boasted in conversation of having met Knut in the garden, the wood, or the English quarter. He himself had guests: a number of his fellow students came up to the valley, six or seven young men who lodged in the village but ate at the Hofrat’s table, and with others of their corps scoured the region in a body. Hans Castorp avoided them. He gave them a wide berth with Joachim whenever necessary; he felt no least desire to meet them. A whole world divided those up here from these singing, roving, staff-brandishing youths⁠—he wished neither to see nor to hear anything of them. They looked, most of them, like northerners, there might be Hamburgers among them; and Hans Castorp felt very shy of meeting his fellow townsmen. He had often uncomfortably considered the possibility that somebody or other from home might arrive at the Berghof⁠—had not the Hofrat said that Hamburg always furnished a handsome contingent to the establishment?