To the graveyard then, on the slope of the Dorfberg, the three wended their way⁠—we tell it to complete the tale of their excursions. It was Hans Castorp’s idea; Joachim probably had scruples at first, on the score of poor Karen, but in the end agreed that it was useless to pretend with her, or to carry out Frau Stöhr’s cowardly policy of shielding her from all that could remind her of her end. Karen Karstedt was not yet so far on as to display the self-deception that marks the last stage. She knew quite well how it stood with her, and what the necrosis of her fingertips meant: knew too that her unfeeling relatives would not hear of the unnecessary expense of having her sent back home, and that it would be her lot, after her exit, to fill a modest space up yonder. In short, it might even be said that such an excursion was more fitting, morally spoken, than many another, than the cinematograph or the bobsleigh races, for example⁠—and surely it was no more than proper to make those lying up there a visit once in a way, as a comradely attention, provided one did not regard it as in the same class with an ordinary walk or excursion to a point of interest.